


Forgive Us Our Transgressions

by PoorMedea



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Amnesia, Canon - Movie, Coma, Fix-It, Illnesses, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-25
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-24 23:07:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 34,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoorMedea/pseuds/PoorMedea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mind is a strange place, as Charles knows all too well. Memories come and go, and sometimes are wiped away forever. is this finally the chance he's been waiting for?</p><p> ~~~</p><p>When Magneto comes down with a terrible illness, the Brotherhood turns to the only mutant they know who can help—Hank McCoy.  Unfortunately, this leaves Magneto at the doorstep of Charles Xavier: former friend, former lover, current adversary.</p><p>When Charles discovers that the illness has left Erik with no memories of what came before, he is left with a choice:  To return <i>Magneto</i> to the Brotherhood, or to keep <i>Erik</i> for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Mystique paced the room, a phone pressed to her ear.

“Come on, come on,” she muttered.

“Raven— _Mystique_ ,” Angel amended quickly. “This isn’t working. We need help.”

“Yeah, well, no one wants to help us,” Mystique snarled, slamming down the phone. “Because we’re goddamn mutants. You think a hospital is going to treat Magneto? There’s not a doctor in the country that would so much as hand a tissue to the leader of the Brotherhood.” She dropped heavily into a chair. “There’s no one.”

“That’s not true and you know it,” Angel said fiercely. Despite her harsh tone, her hand was gentle where it dabbed at Erik’s forehead, pressing a cool cloth against his heated flesh. “Hank is as good as a doctor.”

Azazel observed the conversation from the corner of the room, his posture tense as he watched the two girls stare each other down.

“Hank is the enemy. Or have you forgotten? The “X-Men” fight us at every turn.”

Angel shrank back at her words. Hurt and anger were palpable in Mystique’s tone.

“We have to do _something_ ,” Angel said helplessly, turning her gaze back to their leader, stretched out on the dirty motel bed. “I think—I think he’s dying,” she whispered.

 

______________________________________________________________

 

Charles woke to a buzzing in his head, a veritable storm of static, jamming every frequency to which he was normally tuned. He lurched upright, eyes wide, and cast his mind out, calling for Hank.

Nothing.

He tried every student in turn, calling for Alex, for Sean, even for little Scott and Jean. All he hit was a wall of white noise.

Panic crested within him, but he moved cautiously as he reached out for the chair by his bed. He had fallen enough times to know to be careful, to move slowly.

The last thing he needed was to be left sprawled on the floor, practically helpless.

Not if they were under attack.

And that was all he could think, even as he carefully slung his legs over the side of the bed, even as he braced himself, sliding onto the cool plastic of his chair. He moved slowly, quietly, wheeling to his bedroom door and then pausing, listening.

Only silence greeted him, but the buzzing in his head continued, signalling someone’s presence.

And then it stopped.

His consciousness rushed back in, the feel of every person within the house humming contentedly at the back of his mind.

 _Hank!_

He pushed through his bedroom door, knowing he should be cautious, but unable to hold back.

Someone had been here, in his house, in his school, someone strong enough to block his power. It left a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he couldn’t help but charge out of his room, wheeling himself forward with all the rage a paraplegic could muster.

The elevator creaked slowly down its shaft—metal, despite their best efforts to rid the mansion of the substance—and Charles drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, willing it to move faster.

But that wasn’t _his_ power.

When the doors slid open he cast his mind out once again, scanning the property and the surrounding grounds.

At first, he thought there was nothing. No sign of whoever had been there, or what they had done.

But then he felt it—a slight tickling at the edge of his consciousness, a low-level hum. It was like someone dreaming, but didn’t have the feel of any of his students.

He rolled forward, peering through the darkness, trying to find the body that went with the mind he felt.

And then he stopped, gasping, as he saw the figure, spread prone in the front hall.

 _Hank!_ he mentally bellowed.

The clatter of footsteps in the upper hall—not just two feet, but four enormous paws—let him know the man was on his way. Charles held himself back, although he wanted to rush forward, to check that the person was alright—from the buzz of their mind, they were alive, but just barely.

Was it a mutant, seeking help? A body, left as some cruel warning, a taunt from their enemies? Charles gripped the arms of his chair and forced himself to wait for Hank to clatter down the stairs behind him.

“Professor?” Hank barked.

“Here.”

“What—why are you in the dark?”

Charles heard the click of a switch, and then light flooded the front hall, and his heart stuttered in his chest.

“ _Magneto_ ,” Hank growled. “Professor, don’t move.” Charles knew that sound, knew the thick blue fur at the nape of the man’s neck was standing on end, bristling out a warning.

But he couldn’t turn to look at his friend, to reassure him. He couldn’t do anything but stare at Erik, lying on his back in the front hall, eyes peacefully closed, and his head bare.

The helmet was nowhere in sight.

For one, horrifying second, tears sprung into Charles’ eyes at the sight of Erik’s thick brown hair, covered for so long by that damned helmet, closing off the one mind Charles had once believed would always be open to him.

He shook his head, shaking off the emotions, bottling them back up the way he had for years.

“What is he doing here?” Hank growled, stalking closer.

“I have no idea,” Charles said helplessly. “When I woke, my powers were gone—or, not gone, but _blocked_. It only lasted a minute.”

“Who could do that?” Hank asked, horrified.

Charles wasn’t sure, but the presence of Erik in his front hall seemed to suggest—

“Emma’s not that powerful,” Hank shook his head.

“Not the last time we came up against her,” Charles agreed. “And yet.”

Both their gazes strayed back to the body in their foyer.

“Is he—?”

“Alive,” Charles confirmed. “Unconscious.”

More than that, though. His mind felt…strange. Fuzzy. Different enough that Charles hadn’t recognized him, despite the many months he had spent veritably curled up in Erik’s mind, cosy and welcome.

Hank crept closer, his large figure hunched as he approached Erik’s form. Dropping down beside him—shoulders tense, ready to spring away at the slightest movement from the man—he touched his neck with one large, blue finger.

“Steady pulse, but faint,” he reported. Giving Erik’s serene face one more look of narrow-eyed suspicion, Hank reached to peel back an eyelid. “Pupils dilated. Breathing laboured.” He glanced up at Charles, held so very still as he watched the examination. “He’s ill. Feverish. Probably at least 102, maybe higher.”

Charles refused to think about the emotions Hank’s words called up in him. He schooled his face into careful neutrality. “But why is he _here_?”

“I don’t—“ Hank began, patting Erik down, his large paws dwarfing the man’s long, slender frame. “Wait.” Triumphantly he held up a folded piece of paper, previously tucked into Erik’s breast pocket.

Charles held out an unsteady hand. He trusted Hank, of course he did, but he wanted to see whatever the paper contained with his own eyes.

Erik, back in his life, in his house.

He unfolded the paper, his breath catching at the familiar scrawl.

Not Erik’s, but _Raven’s._

 _Charles_ , it began, no salutation. He could almost hear Raven’s clipped tone, hurt and anger buried under her feigned indifference.

 _Magneto is sick. He’s had a fever for over a week; he’s disoriented and sometimes hallucinates. We don’t know what caused it, or what to do for him. No doctor will help us._

 _Bringing him to you was not my decision, but I was overruled. I suppose there’s not much more your ‘X-Men’ can do to hurt him at this point._

Charles blanched. Did she really think—?

 _The others think Beast is our best hope._

 _Please don’t prove them wrong,_

 _M._

He squinted at the “M” in confusion, before the name “Mystique” whispered into his mind. Not Raven, not anymore.

Charles sighed, dropping the letter into his lap to meet Hank’s expectant gaze. “They left him for us to take care of.”

Hank snarled out a bitter laugh. “Well, I suppose an invalid _would_ cut into their busy schedule of terrorism.”

Charles sighed, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. Hank hurt, too, he reminded himself. The only girl who had ever paid him a mote of attention had turned her back on him. He knew that stung, only too well.

His was not the only heart broken.

“They don’t have the resources, the facilities,” Charles reminded him gently. “They’re on the run, after all.”

“Because they’re criminals.”

“Be that as it may. He is a mutant, seeking asylum.”

That was their duty, their mission statement. To take in everyone of their kind who needed help.

The fact that they were often trying to protect those mutants from Erik, and his more _ruthless_ recruiting style, didn’t bear thinking about.

“He’s dangerous,” Hank said, voice hard.

“Then, we’ll have to be very cautious,” Charles said briskly. “Now, can he be moved?”

Hank sighed, the kind of long-suffering sigh he had built up over the years of working with Charles. Normally it amused him, but tonight Charles wanted to sigh at himself. What was he doing, allowing Erik into his house?

“Where do you want him?”

“One of the bedrooms, I suppose. As far from the students as possible.”

Hank nodded, bending down to scoop up Erik’s lax form. Charles couldn’t help but wince at the way his limbs dangled. Limp and lifeless. “Locks won’t keep him in,” Hank said gruffly.

“Not metal ones, anyway,” Charles agreed.

He didn’t need to be able to see Hank’s face to know he was rolling his eyes. “I guess I’ll be in my lab, then.”

“Good man,” Charles said. It was just an expression, but when he spoke to Hank, he truly meant it. The gentle way Hank handled Erik—their eternal adversary—was proof enough.

“You’re the one who gets to explain this to everyone else,” Hank called over his shoulder.

Charles watched his figure move up the wide staircase, the majority of Erik’s limp body obscured by Hank’s intimidating bulk.

It had been years since he had seen Erik so helpless. And back then it had come in moments of peace and serenity, the gentle sweep of Erik’s eyelashes against his cheeks in the soft morning light, the man’s frame finally uncoiled, relaxed beside him in bed.

Not helpless but unguarded, trusting.

Charles winced, flinching away from the memory.

_______________________________________________________


	2. Chapter Two

In the door of the unused bedroom, Charles hovered, unable to draw himself away, but unwilling to enter. Erik lay in bed, his face turned into the pillow, and the soft rays of the late morning falling across his shuttered eyes. It wasn’t the serenity Charles remembered, the peacefulness that he had fought hard to win. Now his sleep was restless with dreams that buzzed into Charles’ mind, flashes of images, voices, dark and disconcerting. Fever raged in Erik, distorting his mind, but Charles worried that the dreams would not be all that different, even if Erik were well.

The things he had done since they parted...

Charles shook his head. What was his thinking, bringing this man—this killer—into a school, a safe house for children? He couldn’t even justify it to himself, let alone the other faculty members, and yet there Erik lay, shivering and sweating with his illness.

Vulnerable.

Charles resisted the urge to roll into the room, to smooth the hair back from Erik’s heated brow. To gentle his dreams with a touch to his temple, to soothe the rage that obviously burned inside him.

Erik wouldn’t want that. He had never wanted Charles’ help, his sympathy, his understanding. He didn’t want Charles’ soothing words, or his argued idealism. Erik wanted his rage, his hate, his vengeance. More than he had ever wanted Charles.

Knuckles white where he gripped his wheels, Charles rolled away.

He had lessons to teach, children to tend to. Hope to engender.

Erik was counter to all that his life had become.

______________________________________________________________________________________

 

“What were you thinking?” Alex snarled.

“He’s ill,” Charles said, uncomfortably aware that Alex was merely voicing what they were all thinking, even himself.

“Boo hoo,” Alex said, raising his voice to Charles in a way he hadn’t done in years. “Send him to the doctors then, but don’t keep him here.”

Charles sighed. “You know we’d have to find a mutant doctor—and not one in our network. One that’s sympathetic to the brotherhood. Don’t you think Ra— _Mystique_ would have located such a person, if one did exist? They came here for a reason.”

“Yeah, to fuck you over. Again,” Alex huffed, slamming back in his chair with crossed arms, looking so much like the teenager he and Erik released from prison all those years ago that Charles had to do a double take.

“What if it’s a trap?” Sean ventured, always hesitant to get involved in conflict.

“I wouldn’t put much past them, but Magneto is _really_ sick,” Hank said reluctantly. “I doubt that even the Brotherhood would nearly kill their leader just to infiltrate this place. After all, it’s not that hard to break into. As they proved last night.”

Charles narrowed his eyes, nevermind that Hank was entirely correct. Security had never been as good as it should have been— _as good as it would have been if Erik had stayed,_ his traitorous mind whispered—because Charles had the ability to monitor every consciousness in the house.

Except when he didn’t—and that’s what made the previous night rub so raw.

“Alex, call up Logan and start going over new plans for security for the mansion,” Charles ordered, admitting defeat.

“What?” Alex’s eyes widened. “Am I being _punished_ for yelling at you? I thought we were supposed to be equals.”

“Talking to Logan is not punishment,” Charles scolded, although he was glad not to be tasked with it himself.

“Yeah right,” the blond snorted, pushing back his chair with a grinding scrape. Charles was gratified to see that he was heading for the phone, at least.

“So, what?” Sean asked, when Alex had slammed his way from the room. “We’re going to play nursemaid to Magneto, get him back on his feet, and then send him out to try and kill us again?”

Charles groaned, rubbing at his temples, and trying to soothe his burgeoning headache before it leaked over to everyone in the room. “I don’t know, okay Sean? I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Despite all their talk of being equals, Sean’s eyes grew wide with the admission. “Hey,” he said, leaning across the table to pat awkwardly at Charles’ arm. “We understand. We all know you’re still in love with the guy.”

“Sean!” Hank barked.

“What? He’s practically got Erik+Charles scrawled inside the cover of all his genetic books. We’d have to be _blind_ not to notice.”

“Go…do something else,” Hank said weakly, gesturing the young man away, commanding despite the fact that they were roughly the same age and equals in the house. Sean had never really grown up in any of their eyes. Charles wondered if he ever would. The boy— _man_ —was too earnest, too easy-going to seem like a real adult. And too prone to putting his foot in his mouth, Charles thought with a shake of his head.

“He’s not _wrong_ , though,” Hank said as soon as Sean had left the room.

“Et tu, Brute?” Charles said weakly.

“I just want to make sure you’re not letting your emotions cloud your judgment.”

“Of course I am,” Charles said with a shake of his head. “But when don’t I? If I looked at the world in an entirely detached, reasonable fashion, I would have joined Erik’s Brotherhood years ago.”

“Don’t say that,” Hank said sadly, bushy blue brow creasing with his concern.

Charles merely shrugged. The sleeplessness night, the presence of Erik in the house, and the argument had worn him down.

“Professor…” Hank began.

Charles held up a hand, cutting him off. “I’ll be fine, Hank. Just worry about your patient. I promise to keep well out of your way.”

_______________________________________________________________________________________

 

Of course, that wasn’t a promise he could keep. He found himself lingering at the end of the disused hall, eyes straying down to the closed door that marked Erik’s room. He rolled past time after time, pausing but never directing his chair down to that door, the blank wooden face of it somehow managing to call to him.

He knew Erik was still unconscious, could feel the unfamiliar buzzing of his feverish mind. It wouldn’t _hurt_ to go in, he told himself. No one would know. He wouldn’t have to talk to Erik, to confront him, to face the fact that they were enemies now. He could just…look at him, remind himself how Erik looked when he was un-helmeted, features relaxed. It had been so long since Charles had seen his face not twisted with rage, furrowed with righteous indignation.

It had been so long since he had seen _Erik_ and not Magneto.

He was halfway down the hall before he realized what he was doing.

Hank would know, would smell him in the room, would give him that _look_ , scolding and pitying that made him feel about ten years old. And yet he wheeled himself forward.

The door creaked open under his hand and Charles peered in, squinting to make out Erik’s form in the dim light.

Charles wheeled forward slowly, reluctant to break the silence of the room. Erik was sleeping peacefully, for a change, his breathing even, his eyes serenely closed, his mind a soothing hum. _The fever must be breaking_ , Charles thought, and reached out, pressing his hand gently against Erik’s sweat-damp forehead.

“W—what?” the man murmured, his voice hoarse.

Charles jerked his hand back with a gasp.

“No, wait,” Erik said, eyes still closed. “Your hand feels so nice.”

Charles could only stare. Erik’s eyes fluttered open, revealing blue depths that Charles hadn’t gazed into in years. “Your hand is so cool,” he sighed lowly.

Erik was looking at him, talking to him, and yet he wasn’t pulling away, wasn’t yelling or threatening. Wasn’t turning his back or walking away.

It wasn’t right, but it felt so good, and so Charles reached out with a shaky hand, pressing his palm to Erik’s heated cheek.

“Mmm,” the man sighed, eyes fluttering shut again. “Thank you.”

“You’re—you’re welcome.”

He could feel Erik drifting back to sleep, but that wasn’t what made him frown, his brow furrowing at he stared down at the man in front of him.

He had blamed the feel of Erik’s mind on his illness, assuming the foreignness to be generated by the fever.

But Erik’s fever was breaking, he had been awake and lucid and yet his mind still felt—wrong.

Or, not wrong, but different. Quiet. Peaceful.

Not like Erik at all.

Charles pressed in, trying to feel for the man he knew, but all he found were empty spaces and sensation, the heat of Erik’s skin, the drag of the bedclothes over his flesh, and the beautifully cool feel of Charles’ hand, cupping his face.

Charles drew back.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

 

“He’s not himself,” Charles insisted, pulling Hank along behind him.

“Well, he’s been feverish for days, he’s disoriented…”

“No,” Charles said firmly. “He’s not _Erik_. Not the man we knew.”

“Magneto wasn’t the man we knew, either,” Hank pointed out, but allowed himself to be dragged along, ignoring how ludicrous it was, a paraplegic pulling a man of his bulk and stature down a hall.

“This is different. His mind feels…wrong. Empty, somehow. There’s no hint of Shaw, of his mother, of the camps. There’s no hint of _us_ ,” Charles flushed as his voice broke. He rarely mapped his own mind, but he knew there had to be a huge portion of it, boarded up and closed off, devoted to Erik.

But Erik’s mind had been completely devoid of him.

“Well,” Hank said thoughtfully, as they paused in front of the door to Erik’s temporary bedroom. “Fevers as high as the one Magneto had can, in some cases, cause brain damage.”

“Brain damage?” Charles choked.

Hank shrugged his large shoulders. “A temperature of over 102 can start to…fry the brain, to put in crudely. I suppose memory loss is possible.”

Charles blanched. Memory loss. If that was the case, what had Erik lost? Apparently any memory of Charles, and how unfair was that? There were some days—dark days—when he would give anything to lose his memories of Erik, of what he had once had and subsequently lost.

There were other days when you would have to pry them from his cold, dead hand.

Charles shook his head, trying to focus. Erik didn’t seem to remember him, or the X-Men in general.

But what of the Brotherhood?

“Hank, what if he’s lost all memory of his crusade for mutant supremacy? Of his desire for vengeance?”

Hank frowned. “The world would be a better place.”

Charles set his mouth in a hard, determined line. “Exactly,” he said, and pushed open the door.

Erik lay where he had left him, his sleep deeper and less troubled than it had been since he arrived at the mansion.

Hank busied himself with his patient, checking his temperature, his pulse. “His fever is definitely going down,” he said with satisfaction.

“What did you give him?” Charles questioned, rolling closer.

“Oh, I just mixed something up in the lab.”

“And that couldn’t have caused—?”

“Brain damage?” Hank scoffed, indignant. “No, it was the illness, not the medicine, that caused any damage there may be.”

“I’m sorry, my friend,” Charles sighed. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened. If it was chemically induced, he might revert back.”

“But with a fever, it will probably be permanent,” Hank said, completing Charles’ thought. “I see.”

Charles gave him a sharp look at his tone. “This isn’t about me,” he denied. “This is about the safety of the world.”

“Of course, Professor,” Hank agreed, ducking his head over his patient.

Charles’ shoulders slumped. He wished his colleagues didn’t know him so well.

But the idea of an Erik unburdened of Shaw, of the Nazis, of his personal vendetta against humanity. The idea of an Erik purged of rage and retribution…

It was very, very tempting.

__________________________________________________________________________________


	3. Chapter Three

“Hello?”

Erik’s voice was different. Softer. Hesitant in a way that Erik had never been, even before he took over Shaw’s mantle, his quest for world domination.

“Is someone there?”

“Yes,” Charles answered, pushing himself fully into the dimly lit bedroom. “How are you?”

“I’m…tired, I suppose,” the man answered thoughtfully. “Who are you?”

Charles drew nearer to the side of the bed. Erik had been sleeping all day, but Hank warned him that the man would need to regain his strength after such an illness. He would be tired constantly, easily worn out. His mind was still an unsettling blank, a thick fog carpeting everything that Charles knew to be _Erik_.

“I’m a friend,” Charles answered, his voice even, the rehearsed words barely catching in his throat.

“Oh.” Erik’s brow creased. “Where am I?”

“My house.”

“Oh,” he said again. “Then we must be good friends. For you to take care of me.”

“We have been very close,” Charles agreed, still being careful with his words. Despite his attempts to probe at Erik’s mind, he still wasn’t sure what the man remembered, what he knew of their past.

“It’s still very good of you,” Erik said. And then he smiled, a simple, uncomplicated smile. A mere turning up of the lips, and yet so much easier, freer than any smile he had granted Charles before.

Even when they had been truly _close_.

Charles averted his eyes. It hurt, that smile, that freedom with which this man who looked like Erik was willing to give him his friendship. “You should sleep,” he said. “You need your energy.”

“I am tired,” Erik said agreeably, turning his face into the pillow. “Will you stay with me?”

“I—“ Charles began.

“I feel so much better knowing someone’s here.”

Charles bit his lip, watching Erik’s eyelids fall shut. “Alright,” he whispered.

It was dangerous, watching Erik sleep—a deep and uncomplicated sleep. It brought back memories, but worse than that, it dredged up old desires, things he had once longed for that had never come to pass.

He had once wished with all his heart for Erik to give up his vendetta, to forget Shaw, to forget the crimes committed against him. To let it all go and accept that he could be happy.

With Charles.

It had been all the worse, knowing that it was within his power to make that a reality. He could have snuck into Erik’s mind at any point before the final confrontation. He had known what was coming, and Erik’s mind had still been open to him. He could have taken what he wanted, removed the blackness and rot from within his friend, and left only the parts that he desired.

It would have been easy.

It would have been so, so wrong.

And yet, it had been hard to hold back, that final night.

“Peace was never an option,” Erik had declared, and Charles _knew_. In that moment it had been like clairvoyance was his power, the future had been so clear. Erik would take his revenge, and he would turn his back on Charles in doing so.

That night, when they went to bed together, stripped bare in every way, bodies pressed tightly together in an effort to forget what the morning would bring, it would have been so easy to just…modify Erik.

But Charles had his morals and his ideals. It was what split them apart in the first place, and it was what prevented Charles from holding them together.

And so Erik had walked way. Had left him bleeding on that beach.

And yet now, it seemed his wish had belatedly come true. Somehow a serene, untroubled Erik had been left on his doorstep, a man who, rather than world domination, only wanted someone to stay with him while he slept.

So why did it trouble Charles so deeply?

He stared down at Erik’s familiar-but-not face, his gaze tracing the delicate veins in his eyelids, the soft brush of his eyelashes against his cheeks. His brow was smooth, his lips slack. His breath—easier now that the illness was passing—whistled softly against the soft down of his pillow.

“Oh, my friend,” Charles whispered. “I can’t tell if this is a gift to me, or a curse to you.”

He reached out, just brushing his fingers over Erik’s face, his breath catching as the man unconsciously turned into the touch.

He wanted this to be real, so badly. And yet, he knew to wish that was to wish his friend away, to erase what made Erik the man that he had fallen in love with.

But, Charles thought, staring down at his friend. Would that not be worth it, in the end?

______________________________________________________________________________

 

“You’re looking better today,” Charles said briskly as he rolled into the room.

Erik was propped up in bed, the curtains open, and the warmth of the sun heating his face.

“I feel better,” Erik replied proudly. “Practically as good as new.”

“Practically?” Charles asked.

“Well,” Erik’s brow creased, ever so slightly. “I can’t seem to remember much about…before,” he admitted vaguely.

“Before?” Charles prompted, though of course he knew.

“Before my illness,” Erik frowned.

“Well, you had a terrible fever. I’m sure it’s nothing to be concerned about.” Charles said blandly, fussing with the tray that bore Erik’s lunch. “But I’ll ask the doctor, just to be sure.” He knew what Hank thought, of course. Knew that Hank was more than concerned about the potential damage done to Erik’s brain. Knew that Hank was even more concerned about what it meant for the X-Men, for the Brotherhood. For Charles.

“I’m sure you’re right. I’ll be myself in no time.” Erik assured him cheerfully.

“I’m sure,” Charles agreed, settling the tray over Erik’s lap. “I’m afraid it’s soup again, my friend.”

“Well,” Erik said, granting him another smile. “It won’t be long until I’m well enough for something more substantial.”

The optimism never failed to catch Charles off guard. This Erik was so good-natured. Easy-going and positive.

It was a bit disconcerting.

“That’s the spirit,” he said instead. Coolly he lifted the spoon to Erik’s mouth, trying to ignore the way the man’s lips parted around the utensil, exhaling onto the hot liquid before letting it dribble inside. Lips that he had become accustomed to seeing set in a hard, uncompromising line. Now they parted easily for him, and Charles had to look away, focusing instead on the dip of the spoon into the swirl of cloudy broth, on chasing down bits of vegetable.

When lunch was finished, Erik settled back down in bed. “Thank you, my friend,” he said groggily. “For taking such good care of me.”

“Well,” Charles said, turning away slightly. “That’s what friends are for.”

A warm hand pressed over his own. “Then I’m glad to have you for a friend.”

Charles had to bite his lip against the pain that blossomed in his chest. “And I you,” he whispered.

______________________________________________________________________________

 

“What is he still doing here?” Alex asked, exasperated, over breakfast the next morning.

“He’s recovering,” Charles replied shortly, staring down into his tea.

The blond rolled his eyes. “He’s _fine_. He’s up there watching Gilligan’s Island and eating our soup. He could do that anywhere. Give him back to the people who actually want him.”

“Alex, he doesn’t remember anything. We can’t send that man back to a terrorist organization.”

The blond snorted rudely. “It’s a terrorist organization _run by your sister_.”

“Alex!” Hank snapped, before Charles could open his mouth. “You’re an asshole.”

“So’s Magneto, and yet he gets soup.”

“Alex, this is our chance to do something about the Brotherhood. If we send Erik back down, they’ll just re-indoctrinate him. But if we can change his mind while he’s here…just think of the difference it will make.”

“I’d agree with you, Professor,” Alex said, narrowing his eyes slightly. “If I thought that was the whole reason you wanted to keep him here.”

Charles’ chest tightened. “It’s not like that.”

“It’s always been like that,” the other man disagreed. “Every time we come up against the Brotherhood, it’s there, lurking in the background. It’s there affecting every decision you make. You don’t want to let him leave, because you’ve finally got your boyfriend back.”

“Alex, that’s enough,” Hank said firmly.

“You know I don’t care.” Alex dismissed Hank with a wave of his hand. “I don’t care that you’re in love with a man. But I care that you’re in love with _that_ man.”

Charles turned his face away. Was there any point in denying it? His love for Erik had been written all over him since the moment he pulled the other man out of the water in Miami, all those years ago.

“I’m just trying to do what’s best for all of us,” he said quietly.

Alex sighed, reaching over to clap him on the shoulder. “I believe that you believe that.”

______________________________________________________________________________

 

“You used to like to play chess,” Charles said. “With me,” spilled, unbidden, over his lips.

Erik hesitated at the other side of the board. “I’m not sure I remember how.”

“I’ll show you.”

Erik nodded slowly. “Alright.” He reached out a hesitant hand, brushing a finger over the nearest black knight. “This looks…familiar, somehow.”

“You’ve played with this board before,” Charles said, trying to keep his tone light. “Many times.”

“Ah,” Erik smiled. “See? I’m remembering already.”

 _Oh, I hope not, my friend._ Charles smiled wanly.

He guided Erik through the opening moves of the game, watching him closely. If anything in the mansion was going to trigger a memory of _before_ , it would be this; the two of them, bent close over a chessboard.

Memories flooded through Charles, at least, every move and every look reminding him of years gone by, of a time when the careful strategy of chess was merely a prelude to something _more_.

He glanced at Erik, seeing the way the man frowned over the board, biting his lip in concentration. Watching the way his hand hovered over the pieces; large, broad hands, whose touch he remembered all too well.

 _And yet not well enough._

“Are you alright?” Erik asked.

“Hmm?” Charles wrenched his eyes back to the other man, well aware that a blush was creeping up his neck. “I’m fine, my friend. Just planning how to beat you.”

“Ah!” Erik laughed, a full, rich sound. “Taking advantage of my weakness.”

Charles froze. “I—I would never—“

“Charles,” Erik said, reaching out to brush his hand. “I was only kidding. I know you wouldn’t.”

And yet he was. Charles bit his lip. He was taking the advantage Erik’s illness had given him, trying to exploit it for all it was worth.

And seeing Erik look at him, with so much trust in his eyes, he felt like the bad guy for the first time in many, many years.

______________________________________________________________________________


	4. Chapter Four

“These grounds are lovely,” Erik said, gazing out the window. “Are they all yours?”

“They all belong to the house, yes,” Charles said. He had given up ownership of the mansion when he formally registered it as a school. Now the Xavier Trust held the deeds, nevermind that he _was_ the Xavier Trust. It had felt good to hand over the things he had never earned to a cause he actually believed in.

“It would be nice to stretch my legs for a bit,” Erik suggested. “To take a short walk.” he glanced back at Charles and then frowned, suddenly stricken. “I mean—“

Charles followed the man’s gaze to the chair he sat in and smiled. “A walk would be lovely,” he agreed.

“Do you mind me asking? I mean, I’m sure I knew once, but how did you—?” Erik stammered.

It was charming, in a way, to see him so unsure, for once hesitant to offend. The old Erik had always said what he was thinking, blunt to the point of rudeness, having never grasped the point of tact or social niceties.

There hadn’t been much need for them in the camps, or under Shaw’s regime.

Now, though, haven’t forgotten what he suffered, he was loathe to cause others pain.

Charles wanted to reassure the man, to give him some blithe answer, but he found himself ducking his head against the onslaught of memories the mention of his injury brought forth.

The sharp pain of the shot, and the numbness that followed.

The feel of the sand beneath him, in his eyes, in his mouth, and then the gentle touch of Erik’s hands.

The worry pouring forth from Moira, Raven and the boys, and the void where Erik’s mind should have been, closed off by the helmet.

The look in Erik’s eyes as he laid him down on the sand, stepping away from Charles forever.

He closed his eyes, willing the memories—the pain—away. “It was an accident,” he told himself as much as Erik. “Many years ago.”

“Does it cause you pain?” The man asked softly.

“No. I can’t feel anything at all.”

He remembered that moment of realization. Erik gone, Raven gone, and the feeling of his legs…gone. It had come to him, in that moment of quiet after the dust had settled, the fact that everything below his groin had just…disappeared. He could hear his own voice ringing in his head, repeating the words over again over again.

 _“I can’t feel my legs.”_

“Shall we take that walk, then?” he suggested, trying not to blanch at the words.

Erik’s easy smile was almost enough to wipe away the memories that assaulted him.

He led the man down the hall, reaching out with his mind to ensure that they met no one on their way. Alex and Sean weren’t comfortable with Erik being there, and none of the students were aware of his presence.

He could only imagine the pandemonium if Magneto was discovered in their midst.

Gently he encouraged everyone away from the hall, from the elevator, and from the back terrace. Erik followed behind him, blissfully unaware.

Charles could feel the wonder with which the other man was absorbing his surroundings, similar and yet so different from the wonder with which he had viewed the mansion for the first time. Then, it had been tinged with anger, with envy, with the injustice of the disparity in their lives.

Now, it was a pure emotion, pleasure in the beautiful surroundings, awe at the wealth displayed.

Charles told himself he didn’t miss Erik’s wry comments about the luxury he had grown up in.

He led the man out the back doors, onto the wide terrace where they had spent that one glorious week training. Erik let out at pleased sigh at the sight of the grounds, wandering over to the railing to gaze out at the verdant splendour. Charles rolled up beside him just as his eyes landed on the satellite dish, hazy in the distance. His breath caught as Erik frowned, before turning to look down at him.

“Did we grow up together?” the man asked.

“What?”

“I was just wondering if we were children together,” he said, almost shyly. “It’s just, I have the most curious feeling when I’m around you. As if I’ve only just met you, but I’ve known you my entire life.”

Charles knew the feeling all too well. It was precisely what had flooded into him the moment he had dived into the water and grasped Erik in his arms. The certainty, despite the fact that they had just met, that he knew this man, knew everything that he was and everything that he could be.

“We’ve only known each other for a few years,” Charles told him. “But we were extremely close from the moment we met.”

It wasn’t a lie, although he glossed over years of distance and silence. Years of animosity, of fighting, of war.

“Well, I’ve very lucky to have you,” Erik said with a smile—not the triumphant one he had once given Charles on this very terrace, or the cheeky ones they had traded in this house, or the slyly seductive ones he had shot Charles when he was sure no one was looking, but a smile nonetheless. “I feel certain I always have been.”

Charles wished that Erik—his Erik—had really felt that way.

______________________________________

 

Erik’s panic hit Charles hard enough to knock the wind out of him, radiating out from the upper floor like a bomb going off.

Charles froze, terror washing over him. Had Erik remembered?

He couldn’t sort out the rush of emotions coming from the other man, but in the midst of them was his name— _Charles!_ —and that was all he needed, no matter what.

He raced upstairs as fast as the elevator and his wheels would allow him. If Erik had remembered, he was at least still calling out for Charles.

“Erik, my friend, are you alright?” he asked breathlessly, pushing his way into the room.

Erik sat on his bed, eyes wide and frightened, fixed on a point somewhere to the left of the doorway.

Charles followed his gaze.

An antique letter opener was embedded deep in the wall.

“I don’t know what happened,” Erik whispered. “I was frustrated, trying to get myself dressed without assistance, and then—”

“It just went flying through the air?” Charles guessed.

“I could _feel_ it,” Erik said, voice shaking. “I could feel it moving. Am I going crazy?”

“Oh, my friend, no,” Charles said, wheeling closer. “I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest with you.”

The old Erik would have been immediately guarded at that admission, suspicious and angry at having anything kept from him. This Erik merely turned wide, trusting eyes on Charles, waiting for him to speak.

“You and I, and everyone in this house, are not ordinary men. We are, in fact, rather extraordinary.”

“You can do what I did?” Erik asked, gaze straying back to the letter opener, embedded in the wall.

“No. You have the power to move metal. I don’t know anyone else who can do that particular trick.”

“Any metal?” Erik asked, his eyes already scanning the room. Charles watched with interest. Despite everything, the other man was still so quick to embrace his power, to want to learn more about it, to see what more he could do.

He didn’t look frightened, only intensely curious.

He supposed there were some things that Shaw hadn’t ingrained into Erik—there were some traits that were just innately Erik Lehnsherr’s.

“Yes, any metal. And things much larger than a letter opener. You remember that satellite outside?”

Erik’s eyes widened, but this time it was with wonder rather than fear. “I can _move_ that?”

Charles smiled, his first genuine grin since Erik had arrived, he was reminded so strongly of Erik’s joy and triumph the first time the dish had turned towards him. “You can, my friend. You are more powerful than any of us know.”

Erik reached out his hand, in a gesture with which Charles was intimately familiar, and the alarm clock by his bed rose into the air, twirling a pirouette. Erik barked out a laugh of sheer joy. “Look, Charles!”

Warmth diffused through Charles as every metal object in the room took to the air, spinning merrily in place.

Here was Erik’s power, exercised for fun, for joy, for the sheer thrill of using it. It wasn’t a weapon, or training, or practice for warfare. It was just an exercise of sheer delight. “Well done, Erik!” he laughed. “You’re amazing.”

He meant it. He always had.

_____________________________________________

 

Erik was curled up in bed, every piece of metal in the room slightly out of place. Charles sat by the head of the bed, looking down at him indulgently. The least effort still exhausted the other man, and today’s show of power had left him drained. Erik fought to keep his eyes open even as he snuggled under the heavy covers, peering foggily up at Charles.

“So, what is it that you can do?” he asked through a yawn.

Charles let himself reach out, stroking the hair back from Erik’s forehead. This was the best time for this conversation, he knew. When Erik was tired, unfocused, distracted by touch.

And yet, there was no way of wording it that made his power seem less frightening, less intrusive.

“I can hear thoughts,” he whispered, tone light. _No big deal. Just a little telepathy now and again, between friends._

“Oh.” Erik’s brow creased even as he pressed into Charles’ touch. This Erik, this new and unburdened Erik, thrived on touch, sought it whenever he could. He was tactile and affectionate in a way the old Erik, so inured to touch meaning pain, could never have been. “Are you reading my thoughts right now?”

“No,” Charles said, although he was. “I always ask permission of my friends.”

This was true. It was the only way he could make people comfortable around him, the only way anyone would consent to work with him, live with him, be his friend. It was a courtesy he extended to almost everyone. And yet, not to Erik. Not now. Not after what had been.

“Of course,” Erik smiled. So trusting. “You are always so kind, so polite.”

“It is kindness that keeps the world afloat,” Charles said, voice heavy with suggestion. “Hatred, anger, violence…it can only lead to destruction.”

“Of course,” Erik murmured again. “Do unto others.” His eyes fell closed, the words hanging heavily in the air. The basis of his religion, the faith that had carried him through childhood, the faith that kept his mother’s memory alive. The faith that had been crushed out of him by the camps, by Shaw, by the Russians and Americans alike.

 _Show mercy_ …a principle that the old Erik had long since turn his back on and forgotten. Charles let his fingers stroke down Erik’s cheek, tracing the lines of his angular face, his resolve hardening. He would not let this man go back to the way he had been.

_____________________________________________________


	5. Chapter Five

“Can I meet the others?” Erik asks when Charles brought him breakfast the next morning.

“What?”

“You said everyone else in the house was…different. Like us. Can I meet them?”

“Oh.” Charles hesitated.

“For instance, there was a doctor, wasn’t there? Someone taking care of me besides you. I remember _someone_ being here.”

“Yes. There was someone else. My friend Hank. He isn’t a doctor, but he’s very intelligent and capable.”

 _He’s also blue_ , Charles thought. They hadn’t worried about keeping Hank out of sight until Charles realized that Erik truly didn’t remember anything about before. Not about meeting Hank for the first time, or his transformation, or the number of times he had come up against Beast wearing an X-Men uniform. Luckily Erik had been dazed and delusional, when he was even conscious. Charles had been half-sure the man wasn’t even aware that anyone but Charles had ever set foot in this room.

“I’d like to thank him,” Erik prompted eagerly.

Charles wasn’t so sure. Hank could be trusted to be polite, although probably gruff. He wouldn’t let Alex within shouting distance of Erik. And Sean was almost as bad—Charles could never predict what would come out of the young man’s mouth. And yet, Erik’s enthusiasm was catching.

“There are—” he began hesitantly. “This is—a school.”

“A school?” Erik echoed with a frown.

“For people like us,” Charles agreed. “Children with special abilities.”

“Oh. That’s…incredible.” Erik smiled, a bright, unreserved grin. “You are really a very good man, aren’t you, Charles?”

“Well…” Charles ducked his head. He would have agreed, once upon a time. Before he started withholding information from Erik, for one thing. “Would you like to meet some of the children?” he offered, rather than addressing the claim.

“I would love to.”

Charles was fairly certain it would be safe. The children knew Magneto, of course. How could they not? Right now, Magneto and his Brotherhood were the X-Men’s biggest threat, far beyond humanity. Not because Erik attacked them directly, of course not, but because Charles felt compelled to counter their every move, to stop every demonstration of power, every attempt to intimidate and dominate the humans. It was his responsibility, his fault that Erik and Raven had walked away.

But they didn’t know _Erik_ , had no idea about the man behind the helmet. They wouldn’t recognize his face or his name.

Magneto’s history was strictly verboten in the mansion, and so none of the younger mutants were aware that he had once been Charles’ best friend.

And so much more.

And so he led Erik down through the winding hallways, to the one room he felt would be safe.

He called out a mental warning to announce their arrival.

“Professor,” Hank said gruffly, meeting him at the door.

“Hank,” Charles replied evenly.

“Hank?” Erik repeated, admirably taking only a moment to gape at the man’s huge, hairy, blue form. “You’re the one who looked after me!” he said happily, reaching out for Hank’s enormous paw and giving it an enthusiastic shake. “Thank you so much.”

And now it was Hank’s turn to gape, Charles noted smugly. “You’re—“ he faltered. “You’re welcome.”

“I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” Erik continued, finally releasing Hank’s big blue paw.

“Don’t mention it,” Hank grumbled. “Please,” he added under his breath. Charles hid a smile behind his hand.

“And I guess I don’t have to ask what your mutation is, do I?” Erik laughed.

“Ah, there’s more to Hank that meets the eye,” Charles replied. “He’s extremely strong and fast. Not to mention the more intelligent person I’ve ever met.”

“Professor,” Hank complained, ducking his head.

“Well, then it is an honor to meet you,” Erik said. “Although,” he paused. “I suppose I knew you…before?”

Hank’s eyes narrowed. “You did,” he confirmed gruffly.

“Ah, well. It will come back to me one day,” Erik said, shaking off his troubled look.

“I hope not,” Hank muttered. Charles shot him a sharp look.

 _Please, Hank_ , he projected. _Don’t make him unduly suspicious._

Hank gave him a long look in return. _I hope you know what you’re doing, Professor._

“Erik, let’s meet some of the children,” he said, laying his hand on the man’s arm to guide him inside, and trying to pretend he didn’t see the way Hank’s yellow eyes narrowed at the touch.

Inside the classroom the children were learning basic biology—a subject Hank was more than fit to teach. They were young enough that the subject had to be kept fairly general, and yet it had a strong emphasis on genes, mutation, and evolution.

“Hello, children.”

They turned, faces surprised. Surprised, but not frightened. It was unusual for a stranger to be on campus, and that was enough to draw stares. Charles did a quick, non-invasive sweep of their young minds, ensuring that none of them knew Erik for who he really was.

There were more thoughts about what was for lunch than the identity of the stranger in their midst. Charles suppressed a smile.

“Hi, Professor,” they chorused back uncertainly.

“This is my friend, Erik,” Charles smiled, guiding Erik forward. “He’s come to visit the school.”

“Hello,” Erik grinned. Charles couldn’t help but marvel at that grin. The same face, the same lips stretching over the same teeth, and yet it looked so different. There was no sharp edge to it, no hint of bared teeth.

But there was also none of the manic joy he had been privileged to witness, moments where Erik really let go and opened up.

His mind flashed back to that day on the terrace, the toothy grin of pure joy Erik had given him when the satellite dish had moved.

“I hear you all have extraordinary powers,” Erik said. The children gave him an uncertain look. “Why don’t I show you what I can do, and then you can tell me all about your powers?” he offered, just the right give-and-take to get the children to open up.

Charles gave him a wondering look. The old Erik hadn’t ever had the patience for teaching. His one technique was to push them and hope they didn’t die (quite literally in Sean’s case).

But here he was, being gentle and patient. Charles had always known that Erik had the capacity for kindness, for compassion, within him. It had merely been driven out by necessity, by the ever-present will to survive. Now, with those fears and dangers swept out of his mind, he was able to reveal what had always been lurking within him.

Not the core of rottenness he always claimed, but a good, kind man.

Charles felt his heart swell as he watched Erik levitate several of the small, metal objects in the room, making them perform a complicated dance in the air that had the children laughing with delight.

“I wish I could do something like that,” Lorna said with a pout. “My only mutation is this stupid green hair.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” Erik said, very seriously. “I think it’s exquisite. People can tell how special you are just from looking at you.”

Charles watched a blush blossom on Lorna’s face with interest. It was a sentiment he had heard from Erik’s mouth before—when the recipient of his compliments had been another young girl, frightened of her natural appearance and longing to be normal.

Raven had gone with Erik, and the frisson of sexual interest that had sparked through her in that moment cut Charles to the core. He had refused to find out whether Erik returned her feelings.

The idea of his lover replacing him with his sister was too much to bear.

Lorna, of course, was just a child, and yet Charles felt something akin to jealousy rising up within him as the girl blushed and smiled. Erik was proud to be a mutant—both the old Erik and the new shared that trait. He embraced everyone’s mutations, especially the physical ones. It hadn’t slipped past Charles’ notice that Erik tended to recruit the more…unusual looking mutants. First, Angel and Raven and Azazel, and then Sabretooth and Toad joined his ranks.

Charles wondered if having a physical mutation of his own—even one as simple as bright green hair—would have made Erik more hesitant to leave him.

As he frowned over those troubling thoughts—not for the first time—Erik had turned his smile on young Scott Summers, complimenting the boy on his dark glasses. Scott was less susceptible to Erik’s charms than Lorna, but he dutifully explained his mutation and the purpose of his ever-present glasses. Charles caught himself before he explained that Scott’s mutation was nearly the same as Alex’s, just directed through the eyes rather than the chest.

Erik didn’t know who Alex was, after all.

“What about the two of you? What amazing things can you do?” Erik turned to the two remaining children in the room, gently encouraging them to share their powers. Charles could see what he was doing; creating a safe space for them to show off. It was what the Academy was supposed to be, and yet he had always known that Erik’s Brotherhood was probably more adept at it than he ever would be. He was too concerned with safety and discretion to allow the children’s power full reign outside of the underground bunkers. Whereas Erik flashed them an open, welcoming smile, and told them it was fine to use their powers however they saw fit.

“Me first!” Ororo crowed, darting forward. “Let me show you!”

“No fair,” Bobby complained from behind her. “Mine’s just as cool.”

Ororo shot him a mischievous grin. “Together?” she asked.

Just like that it began to rain over their heads, a cloud gathering out of nothingness and shedding down moisture upon them. Charles threw up his arms, but before the drops could even hit their skin, Bobby shot out his hand, and they fell, hard little balls of hail, bouncing off everyone’s hair and clothes, skittering across the floor.

“Hey!” Lorna complained, brushing the tiny pellets out of her wild hair.

 _What are you doing in there?_ Hank grumbled from the hallway, indignant.

“Marvellous!” Erik clapped his hands, a wide smile on his face. “I had no idea such things were even possible.”

The children grinned back, and Charles shook his head. He could see—all too clearly—what life would have been like if Erik had stayed. The two of them, teaching and training together, shaping these young minds.

“And more, so much more,” he told the other man. “There seem to be a limitless number of possible mutations, giving people the most extraordinary powers.”

“Phenomenal. Thank you for showing them to me,” he said to the children.

“You’re welcome!” Ororo said boldly, while Lorna peered around her, a blush still colouring her cheeks as she gazed at Erik.

“Thank you, children. Now, back to lessons,” Charles commanded. He ushered Erik out of the room as the students groaned, allowing Hank to reclaim his class.

“They really are extraordinary,” Erik murmured as they headed for the stairs. “I can see why it’s so important for you to train them, however. A power like Scott’s, or even Ororo’s. They could be dangerous, if not controlled.”

“Indeed they could,” Charles agreed. “Imagine them in the wrong hands.” Hands like Erik’s. It was hard to remember that part of the purpose of the Academy was to protect these children from Erik himself, from being converted into weapons, just as Shaw had done to Erik.

“I shudder to think,” Erik said, and where it would once have inevitably been sarcasm, now he was entirely sincere.

“I’m glad you met them,” Charles said, just as sincerely. _See_ , he wanted to scream. _They are just children. Young, innocent children, who have no place in a war._

But for now he kept both the words and the thoughts to himself.

_________________________________________________


	6. Chapter Six

Charles looked up sharply at the knock on his door.

“Erik?” he called, feeling the man’s untroubled presence on the other side of the thick door.

A moment’s hesitation, and then the door swung open, and Erik peered uncertainly around its frame.

“Am I disturbing you?”

“No,” Charles said with a frown, glancing down at the papers spread before him. “Is something wrong?”

He could feel Erik’s nerves humming from across the room, but the man answered before he had a chance to delve deeper.

“No. I just…haven’t seen much of you today.” Erik didn’t quite meet his eyes as he made the admission.

Charles, so rarely startled, could only blink at him for a moment. It seems that this Erik took him by surprise at every turn.

Seeing Erik interact with the children, seeing the joy on his face as he played their games, had left him spooked.

The old Erik had no time for games, for children, for learning. He wanted soldiers, spat out from the womb ready for combat. It had been…unsettling to see his wide easy grin, flashed at Lorna and the others.

He wore the same face, and yet was such a different man. A stranger really, nothing like the man Charles had once known.

And yet, the changes were good. He was kinder, more considerate, more serene. He wasn’t quick to anger, or impatient or sarcastic. He didn’t go looking for fights, he never assumed that the whole world was out to get him.

Having seen the way the children took to him, the way they smiled at his easy encouragement, Charles was convinced he was doing the right thing.

And yet, he had drawn away, uneasy about so many things. Uneasy, for the first time in years, about his much-touted morality.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” he replied, schooling his face into neutrality. “I’ve had a lot on my plate for the school.”

“Of course,” Erik said immediately. So quick to forgive.

The old Erik had been jealous of Charles’ time, militant in ensuring that he got what he considered his fair due. He lingered in Charles’ office, in his meetings, in all aspects of his life, asserting his claim.

Who would miss that? Charles thought with a sigh.

“It must take up a tremendous amount of your time. Running a place like this.”

“I suppose it does,” he admitted, honest for once. Of course, there was so much more to the Xavier Academy than met the eye. Running the school was challenge enough. Running the X-Men was enough to overwhelm even the strongest man.

“Did you need something?” he asked after a moment, as Erik hovered by his door.

“I thought maybe we could play a game of chess,” the man replied, something almost shy about his tone.

“Oh,” Charles said, tilting his head as he regarded the other man. There was something more, buzzing just beneath the surface. “Alright,” he agreed. “Come have a seat.”

Erik moved across the room easily, and Charles wondered about muscle memory—Erik had walked across this room so many times, navigating the old, heavy furniture, finding the most comfortable chair.

The exact chair that he took now.

Similarities warred with differences in every encounter with Erik, leaving Charles off-balance and uncertain.

The man settled into his seat, squirming slightly. Charles narrowed his eyes with interest.

“There was one other thing,” Erik said, reaching into his pocket. “I made you something.”

Charles was really going to have to get used to being surprised.

Erik passed him an object, small enough to fit into the palm of his hand.

Metal, of course.

It was a tiny sculpture, made up of sinuous lines and gleaming surfaces.

“I’ve been experimenting with what I can do,” Erik told him earnestly. “And I just wanted to be able to give you something. I’m sorry it’s a bit abstract.”

“No,” Charles said, staring down at the object in his hand. “It’s beautiful.”

It wasn’t anything, really, just a shape, but it _was_ beautiful, its curves and lines pleasing to the eye, its smooth surfaces pleasing to the touch. It was lovely, and nothing like something the old Erik would have made.

He didn’t use his power for fun, or beauty, but if he had, if he had taken to sculpture, Charles was entirely sure he would never have produced something like this.

That Erik would have worked on a grand scale, forging huge masterpieces of iron or steel, all hard lines and imposing angles. Charles had seen modern art that reminded him of Erik—a violence to its very form, cold and rigid and austere.

Nothing like this.

Charles’ heart warmed to see it.

“It’s very, very beautiful,” he repeated softly.

“I’m glad you like it,” Erik said, and Charles thought he saw a faint rosiness tinge the man’s cheeks.

______________________________________________________________

 

Erik grew stronger every day, and Charles watched him carefully, seeing the way his energy returned, his muscles strengthening, his interest in the world sparking.

And yet, no memories seemed to come back to him.

Each time Charles knocked on Erik’s door in the morning he held his breath, afraid of what was going to greet him when the door opened. Erik seemed to be getting his old self back—physically at least.

Charles could only pray that memories wouldn’t follow.

“Good morning, my friend,” he said, poking his head around the door. Unlike the weeks previous, Erik was already awake, showered and dressed. Charles had sent a very reluctant Sean out for more clothes for the man, and now he was outfitted the way Charles remembered him—crisp trousers and sleek turtlenecks, all highlighting his long, lean form.

The Magneto getup—with its ridiculous jumpsuit and cape and helmet—had been a crime against that body.

And yet seeing him dressed the way he was in Charles’ memories was startling, a surprising bridge between the here and now and what had become to him only fantasy.

“Good morning,” Erik returned cheerfully, and Charles let out his customary sigh of relief.

He had at least another day, without Erik remembering, without Erik leaving.

He dreaded the anger that would come if Erik regained his memories, the accusations from Erik and the rest of the Brotherhood. But more than that, he dreaded losing his friend.

They were not as close as they had once been, but Erik—this new Erik—had wormed his way into Charles’ heart in his own right, not just a shadow of the lover he had once had, but a friend who’s company he valued _now_.

“Would you like to go for a walk?” he offered.

Erik smiled, but then glanced down at the wristwatch he wore—a gift from Charles, he delighted in the feel of the metal against his skin. “Can I persuade you to put it off until this afternoon? Hank has finally agreed to show me his lab.”

“Really?” Charles couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. Erik’s presence over the last several weeks had worn down the scientist’s resistance, bit by bit, but he had still been hesitant to interact with the man who had already betrayed them once.

Alex still wouldn’t give Erik the time of day, although Sean had progressed to greeting him in the halls without looking like he was going to pass out from sheer terror.

A reaction that had been difficult to explain to Erik, given the circumstances.

“It took some persistence,” Erik admitted. “But he does so many amazing things! You hadn’t even told me about Sean’s flying suit—I never would have guessed it was possible if I hadn’t seen him using it myself, just outside my window.”

Charles smiled blandly, but made a mental note to scold Sean. He was trying to keep the evidence of the X-Men to a minimum while Erik was in residence. After all, how did you explain a highly trained fighting unit, without explaining who they were fighting _against?_

He wanted to maintain the illusion that the Academy was just a school, that the men living there were teachers, nothing more. He knew he was building a house of cards, but couldn’t help but shield it against every gust of wind.

He wanted to keep Erik.

“This afternoon, then,” he agreed. “Don’t let Hank wear you out. He’s very _enthusiastic_ about his work.”

“I’m not sure he could. It seems like I can’t get enough of learning about mutants’ powers. Was it something I worked on, before?”

Charles divulged almost nothing about Erik’s past, and the man had been surprisingly reticent about asking questions, seemingly happy to explore and discover for himself.

“In a sense,” Charles admitted. “You’ve always been very interested in the application of mutations.”

 _For war_ , he didn’t way. _As power, as aggression, a means to invoke fear._

“Well, they are marvellous things,” Erik smiled, the sweeter, softer version of his old smile, which Charles had come to value just as highly as the old.

This Erik thought every mutation was marvellous, even if it had no application in a battle, like Lorna’s shock of hair. He thought teaching the students history and math and science was just as important as teaching battle strategy, as training.

He delighted in talking to the children, not to figure out what use they could be to him, but because they had interesting things to say.

“Have fun with Hank,” Charles said wistfully, momentarily thinking about tagging along. But he knew he needed to give Erik space, to let him be his own person. He wasn’t a prisoner here, he wasn’t an enemy who needed to be watched. He wasn’t even an invalid anymore, so Charles had no excuse.

Except that he liked to be near him.

“I’ll see you at lunch?” Erik asked, stepping closer.

“Of course,” Charles murmured, surprised at the way his face heated at the other man’s proximity, even after all this time.

“Excellent,” Erik smiled, his blue eyes alight. He reached out briefly, touching his fingers to Charles’ cheek, and then he was gone, down the hall and off to Hank’s lab.

Charles raised his own fingers to his face, stunned.

________________________________________________________

 

Charles couldn’t stop thinking about the touch of Erik’s fingers, brief but so startling, against his face.

What had he meant by it?

He brooded in his study, unable to help probing at the minds he could feel in the underground lab, until Hank snapped back.

 _Stop it, Professor! I’m not torturing him, if that’s what you’re worried about._

 _No_ , he didn’t think aloud. _I just want to know where Erik is, when he’ll be done. What he’s doing, thinking, why he touched me, so gently…_

He very pointedly _did not_ say any of that to Hank.

 _Sorry, Hank. Just nervous._

 _He’s fine. He doesn’t remember anything about before. And actually…he’s a pretty insightful guy. He’s made some interesting suggestions about some of my prototypes._

Charles wasn’t surprised, not really. Erik was intelligent, but more than that, he was incredibly pragmatic; he had an amazing ability to narrow in on the most practical application of something—technology, a new power—and exploit it for all it was worth.

Normally what it was worth to him ended in destruction, however.

It had been a relief, these past few weeks, not to be at war. Not to have to worry about where the Brotherhood would strike next, who would suffer, who would die. Not to have to put his own men on the line—men who he still thought of as children, as his responsibility—to try and keep the world in some kind of equilibrium, at least for now.

He hadn’t heard anything from the Brotherhood—from _Raven_ —although he had been expecting it for weeks now. He expected that at any moment they might sweep down upon him, demanding to know what had happened to Erik, to their leader.

He had increased his mental security, to keep out the persistent Miss Frost, just as Alex and Logan had increased the mansion’s physical security.

And there hadn’t been a peep from the Brotherhood.

 _So everything is…fine down there?_ he called out to Hank.

 _Yes, Professor,_ Hank said, sounding exasperated even in his mind. _So can you please leave us alone? Its difficult explaining my designs when you’re constantly poking at my mind._

 _I apologize, my friend. Just…send him back to me, when you’re done._

 _Of course, Professor,_ Hank’s mental voice was a little wistful, and extremely knowing.

Charles sighed. This was all getting a bit out of his control.

If it ever had been in control, to begin with.

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

The sound of high-pitched, childish laughter caught Charles’ ears, and he smiled to himself over his work. This new bunch of students, younger than any he had before, were the culmination of his dream, the realization of his Academy for Mutants. Their joy over learning how to use and control their mutations was what made his struggles worthwhile.

It was when a deep peal of laughter joined the children’s that Charles looked up. The sound repeated, followed by a high shriek of joy, and Charles rolled to the window to investigate.

Bobby was icing patches of grass, spreading the slick surface in long streams across the lawn, and Lorna, her shock of green hair vibrant even from a distance, was sliding behind him, skating in her sneakers.

And beside her was Erik.

The man laughed, a deep, booming laugh, as he took a running start, leaping onto the newly formed ice and skidding along, arms akimbo and head tossed back with joyous laughter.

Lorna followed, slipping and sliding delightedly beside him.

Charles could hardly believe his eyes.

And then, as he watched, Lorna lost her footing, her legs coming out from under her. She brought her arms up to brace herself, and Charles winced, fleeting thoughts of broken arms and casts racing through his mind.

And then she just...stopped, caught in mid-air.

Suspended, she let out a triumphant whoop, and Charles saw Erik grin, hurrying to her side.

She was held fast by the metal in her belt buckle, and the snaps on her jacket.

He let out a sigh of relief as Erik gently lowered her to the fresh, green grass, away from the quickly melting ice, and crouched beside her, ensuring she was alright.

She gave him a huge grin and threw herself forward, winding her small arms around his neck.

Charles shook his head. He never thought he’d see the day Erik Lehnsherr embraced a child.

And yet there he was, hugging Lorna, assuring Bobby that he wasn’t in trouble, and drawing the children into another game.

 

________________________________________________________________


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Erik correctly guesses.

“Charles,” Erik said smoothly, appearing in the door of his study. “I brought lunch.”

“You didn’t have to do that, my friend,” Charles smiled at the metal tray that Erik wielded, kept aloft with his powers alone, and piled high with sandwiches and lemonade.

“We can’t have you starving. Not when you need to be out saving the world.”

Charles paused in the act of clearing his desk of papers, going very, very still.

What, exactly, had Hank shown him in the lab that morning?

“One mutant child at a time, “Erik concluded, dropping into the chair across from him.

Charles gave him a relieved smile. “Ah, you know me too well.”

Erik leaned forward, giving him an inscrutable look. “Do I?” he asked.

Charles faltered.

“Charles,” he said, reaching out to grasp his hand, where it hovered uncertainly over the sandwiches. “How close were we? Before?”

Charles’ breath caught, his senses narrowing in on the warmth of Erik’s hand over his. “You were my best friend.”

“But,” Erik rose from his chair, coming around to Charles’ side of the desk. “Is that all I was? Because, sometimes I get this feeling…”

“Yes?” Charles whispered.

“That there was something more.” Erik leaned in close, ducking down until his breath ghosted over Charles’ flushed face.

“Like what?” Charles asked, fighting to maintain his composure.

“Like _everything_ ,” Erik said, and then closed the distance between them.

It was barely a kiss—more of a ghosting of lips over lips, and yet it took Charles’ breath away.

It had been years—long, endless, torturous years—since he had felt Erik’s lips on his own, and he instantly wanted more, before this kiss had even ended.

“Erik,” he murmured.

“Forgive me, my friend,” Erik said, pulling back a fraction of an inch. “If I am wrong.”

“You’re not,” Charles admitted, leaning forward. “You’re not wrong.”

 _It_ might be wrong, Charles might certainly be wrong, but Erik wasn’t, not in assuming that Charles wanted this too.

He had, for longer than he’d like to admit. Perhaps he had never stopped wanting it.

But as he watched Erik recover, open up and fit so seamlessly into life at the mansion, Charles couldn’t help but want him to stay, to be in his life forever.

To be like they were, once.

He pressed his lips to Erik’s, relearning the shape of them, the soft slide of their mouths together, the heat of his breath, puffing out over Charles’ sensitive mouth.

He tilted his head, drawing Erik closer, panting into the other man’s mouth.

A whimper escaped his lips as Erik drew back.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

“I didn’t want to presume,” Charles said, a safe enough answer, although the weight of what went unsaid settled heavily upon him. “I wanted you to truly want me back, not just because I told you we were…together.”

“You silly, noble man,” Erik admonished with a grin, winding his long fingers into Charles’ hair and drawing him forward. “How could I help but want you?”

Even as Charles leant into the kiss, the words struck at him. Had he somehow made this happen? Forced Erik’s hand?

It didn’t feel forced now, though, as Erik’s fingers raked through his hair, tugging lightly to direct Charles’ mouth where he wanted it. It certainly felt like Erik wanted him as he surged closer, parting his lips to lick at Charles, gently cajoling him to open to Erik’s tongue, desire pulsing in his mind.

Doubts had plagued him since the moment he saw Erik lying in his front foyer, unconscious and desperately ill. But now he shoved them aside, refusing to think of anything but the press of Erik’s tongue against his own, the way it curled, hot and wet, against his teeth. He reached out, hooking a hand behind Erik’s neck, dipping his fingers in under the line of his turtleneck. He loved Erik’s throat—he always had—all the more tantalizing for the way the man kept it covered, encased in the turtlenecks that fit him like a glove. His neck was thick and masculine, but long enough to be elegant, to add to the sleek grace of his every movement.

Charles dug his hand in, wrapping his fingers around the nape of Erik’s neck and stroking the fine hairs he found there.

The man groaned into his mouth, and Charles was gratified that, no matter how much had changed about his former lover, he still knew how Erik liked to be touched.

The heated tangle of teeth and tongues lasted a few, blissful minutes and then Erik drew back, his pupils wide and wanting as he gazed down at Charles. “We should have lunch like this more often,” he said with a satisfied grin.

Charles was too far gone to balk at the cockiness in Erik’s voice. “And breakfast, and dinner,” he added.

“Hmm,” Erik murmured, pleased. He reached down, curling his hand around Charles’s head, his thumb lightly caressing his ear. “What about a nightcap, tonight?”

“Yes,” Charles breathed, leaning into the touch.

 

____________________________________________________________

 

Their walk that afternoon was delayed, but after a hurried lunch, full of long looks and flushed cheeks, they headed out to the grounds, Erik stationing himself at the back of Charles’ chair, although he didn’t need the help to get himself around.

Still, it was nice that Erik wanted to, wanted to be close, and so Charles let him, enjoying being able to relax and let Erik choose their path.

They headed for the trees today, down a slate-lined path that Hank had installed soon after Charles’ injury. The gravel was murder to navigate in his chair, but Hank—with the help of the other boys—had done all he could to make every part of the mansion, including the grounds, accessible to Charles after the accident.

He had pitied himself quite a bit in those first few months, not so much for the loss of his legs but for the loss of Erik. And yet, he had such good friends who had remained by his side, doing all they could to make the transition to being a paraplegic—and a heartbroken one, at that—as easy as possible.

Those same friends who were allowing him to have this moment—Erik back in his life, not full of guilt or anger, but just happy to be with Charles. Not burdened by Charles’ injury, but blissfully pushing his wheelchair along, unaware that he was the one who put Charles in it.

“Charles,” Erik began thoughtfully. “I know that we haven’t talked much about the things I don’t remember.”

Charles tensed, unconsciously holding his breath.

“But I’ve been thinking. The mutant population is quite small, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Charles answered with a frown. His question wasn’t what Charles had been bracing himself for, worried that Erik would ask about their relationship, or his family, or why he didn’t seem to have any belongings, or acquaintances, or a home.

“So that means the majority of the world are normal, non-powered people?”

“Yes.”

“Do they…accept us?” Erik asked hesitantly. “It’s only that I’ve noticed that we’re quite isolated out here. No one seems to come or go. We don’t go into town except when we need supplies. We don’t seem to interact with anyone who isn’t like us.”

“Oh,” Charles said. He hadn’t expected Erik to notice that, not yet. The mansion was secluded, cut off from the rest of the world by design, but Charles had hoped Erik would just see it as a blissful country idyll, rather than the fortress it really was. “Well, that’s true. Humans, non-powered people, have only been aware of mutants for a few years.” Charles frowned, forcing thoughts of the beach and all those guns turning on their small group, out of his head.

“And they don’t accept us,” Erik prompted.

“Well…” Charles hesitated.

“Charles, it’s alright,” Erik came around to the front of his chair, crouching down to bring them eye-to-eye. “I’m not surprised. Imagine if we were like them, ‘normal’ people, and we found out there were people with powers like ours. Or Ororo’s, or, god, _Scott’s_. They must feel so helpless, so unable to match that kind of power.”

Charles could only stare at Erik’s earnest face for a moment. It was exactly what he had always told his friend—to see things from the human’s point of view, to try and understand their fear, the fear that drove them to fight back, even when the mutants had not attacked them first. To fight back against what they could only perceive as a threat.

Erik had never agreed, had always refused to see it his way.

Until now, apparently.

“They are frightened,” Charles agreed. “And that sometimes leads to them…making poor decisions. Sometimes it prevents them from seeing us for what we are.”

“People,” Erik supplied. “Just like them.”

“Exactly,” Charles said, giving the man a small smile. His own thoughts, coming unprompted from Erik’s mouth.

It was nothing short of a miracle.

“And yet,” Erik continued thoughtfully, straightening up and beginning to push Charles’ chair again. “Is hiding really the best option?”

Charles frowned. Now that sounded more like the Erik he had once known. “Well…”

“I mean, of course it’s best to let the children flourish in an open and encouraging environment,” Erik said gently. “I’m not questioning that. But if non-powered people are really afraid of us, doesn’t hiding away encourage that fear?”

“We’re not hiding,” Charles argued, a bit petulant, knowing he had had this argument with Erik a million times over, mostly about Raven. And yet, the words were new to _this_ Erik. “Not really. We don’t want to push them when they’re not ready.”

“But what will make them ready, if you just sequester yourself out here? Let me guess, the only time they see mutants, it’s the ones using their powers irresponsibly—whether accidentally, or on purpose, for crime or murder?”

Charles closed his eyes—it was absolutely true. But what Erik didn’t know was that the mutants exposing their powers to the humans, the mutants generating all that bad press, were Magneto and his followers.

“Yes,” he admitted. “The majority of news stories about mutants are sensationalist pieces, about a child whose power got out of control. Or a mutant trying to intimidate humanity with a show of force.”

“Intimidate humanity?” Erik questioned.

“Some mutants,” Charles said carefully. “Do not take the humanity’s rejection well. They think that we are the superior species, and they make their views known.”

Erik scoffed behind him, a low, indignant noise. “And how do they think that will help? Making the non-powered not only fear them, but hate them?”

Charles bit his lips. This could be his chance, to thrust his views upon Erik, to tell him that the Brotherhood was evil, that their politics were wrong, that Charles’ way was the only way.

And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to do so. “It certainly has not helped the cause,” he admitted, cautious with his words.

“And yet you, who are doing so much good, stay hidden away out here in the countryside.”

It wasn’t entirely true—Charles and the other teachers at the Academy appeared in public as the X-Men, when necessary. But of course, humanity was never grateful for their actions, it seemed. Instead, the headlines would just proclaim the dangers of a mysterious force of powerful mutants, taking the law into their own hands. Unhinged vigilantes, they were called. Charles snorted quietly. Of all the things he had expected to be called in his lifetime—nerd, freak, queer—that was not one of them.

“What are you suggesting?” Charles asked with a sigh.

“Don’t be angry, my friend,” Erik said, so non-confrontational these days. “I only meant that you could do so much good for our kind, if you put yourself out there. If people could see the things you do for these children. The research that you’ve done on mutant genetics. People fear what they don’t understand. But they will never understand our kind if we don’t help them.”

Charles craned his head, looking back on Erik in wonder. His old friend’s own words, but so different now. His belief that mutants shouldn’t have to hide had not changed, but his proposed methods certainly had.

“Come here,” Charles murmured, reaching out a beckoning hand. Erik smiled, hurrying around to the front of Charles’ chair.

“Yes?” he asked, with a pretence of coyness that was hardly suited to his stern face, his commanding presence. And yet, it made Charles’ blood heat.

He reached for him, needing to express his gratitude for having Erik at his side—this new Erik, so similar and yet so different from the old. Erik bent down, meeting him in a rush of lips and teeth and tongues.

“Erik, I—“ he murmured against the other man’s mouth. “I love you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. He had never said those words to Erik, although he had felt them for years. It had all been too much, too fast, before. The flurry of finding other mutants, of the CIA, the Russians, and Shaw. He and Erik had been flung into each other’s arms, and they hadn’t had a moment to analyze what they were doing together, what they were to each other.

Not until the silence that came after. It was only into the void of loneliness that Charles could speak those words, could admit the depth of his feelings for the man who had left him, injured him, betrayed him.

He could only hope he wouldn’t regret saying them now.

“Oh, Charles,” Erik said, bringing a hand up to cradle his face. “You are a remarkable man. I don’t know what came before these few weeks, but I suspect that I have always felt the same.”

There were few things that Charles had wished so desperately to be true.

 

__________________________________________________________________________


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we finally earn the rating.

That night, after the children had gone to bed, and the adults had finally followed, Erik knocked on Charles’ door. It was so like old times, opening the door to see Erik lounging there, a bottle of scotch and two tumblers in his hand. The chessboard, long since tucked away, had made a reappearance in the preceding two weeks, and for a moment, it was almost like the no time had passed.

If not for the chair he was confined to, the ever-present reminder of Erik’s actions that day on the beach, of his carelessness, of his betrayal.

“Night cap?” Erik asked, flashing Charles a confident smile as he held up the bottle in his hand.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Charles replied, trying to shake off the morose thoughts and enjoy the moment.

Erik was here, now, in his bedroom.

It was an opportunity he didn’t want to waste.

Erik strolled in, a confidence to his movements that Charles hadn’t seen since _. The confusion of his illness, his memory loss, his presence in an unfamiliar house, all of it had served to strip Erik of his usual self-possession. The old Erik had commanded a room when he entered, the new Erik slipped in almost apologetically._

Charles had thought the change was due to the shift in his personality, the fact that he hadn’t spent the better part of his adult years hunting men down and making them pay.

But it seemed that all he needed was the assurance of a sexual sure-thing to get his confidence back. It radiated off of him in waves.

He sauntered into the room, placing the bottle and glasses down, not on the table in front of the fireplace, but on the small table beside the bed. He shot Charles a grin.

“Drink?” he asked, casually pouring.

“I think I’ll need one,” Charles admitted. He was feeling a bit out of his depths.

Erik had seemed like his old self the moment he walked into the room, but the illusion was shattered as he tilted his head, peering at Charles with concern. “Everything alright? You do want me here, don’t you?” His thoughts buzzed with _concern, affection, desire._

“Of course, my friend,” Charles said, reassured by the emotions he felt from the other man. “It’s just been…a long time.”

“Has it?” Erik questioned, and Charles couldn’t miss the shift in this thoughts, the need to know what had come before pushing to the surface of his mind. Charles shook his head minutely; they weren’t questions he wanted to answer, not now. Shifting guiltily, he sent a wave of contentment over Erik’s mind, quelling the questions and returning his attention to the matter at hand.

Which, at the moment, were the glasses in his hands. “For you,” he offered, extending one. Instead of taking the glass Charles caught his wrist, rubbing lightly over the pulse point he found there.

He smiled as Erik’s breath caught.

Gently he took the glass, setting it down on the table beside him, and wheeled closer, shifting into Erik’s personal space.

The angle was awkward; seated, he was sure it looked almost like he was offering a blowjob before they had even gotten started. He craned his head back, lamenting the angle of his neck, and tried to meet Erik’s eyes. He had always had to tip his head up to do so, he reminded himself, memories of Erik looming over him, pressed close and filling the space around him, rushed into his mind.

“Charles,” Erik said, setting down his own glass and lowering himself to his knees. Charles smiled. The old Erik had loved the advantage his height gave him, taking every opportunity to assert his dominance. This new Erik seemed content with an even playing field.

The question was in Erik’s eyes and mind before he asked it, and Charles gave him a wan smile.

“How do we…?” The man asked.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Charles admitted.

Erik’s eyes widened. “Oh. So we haven’t been together since you—?”

“No.”

“Then, it’s more recent than I thought,” Erik said, puzzlement warring with desire as he stroked a hand down over Charles’ leg. Charles followed the movement with his eyes, wishing he could feel it in his flesh. Erik slid his hand down over Charles’ calf, loosely wrapping it Charles’ atrophied ankle, and just held him gently for a moment. Charles reached out, reading sympathy, but not pity.

Good.

He knew people pitied him—his friends especially, seeing his loss, physically and emotionally, seeing how hard it hit him. And yet, all he wanted was to be treated like before, like the Charles Xavier who could break into a Russian general’s home, who could immobilize CIA agents, track down international criminals, and save the world.

Now he was just a fusty professor in a wheelchair and a cardigan. Good with the children, but not good for much else.

He frowned. He knew that wasn’t fair; it was how the parents saw him, but not his colleagues, not the children. Not Erik.

But he was afraid it was how he saw himself, sometimes.

“Let’s just take it one step at a time, alright?” Erik asked, his voice pushing Charles’ thoughts aside. Charles nodded, closing his eyes and merely inhaling the scent of the other man as he leaned in.

Erik’s lips ghosted over his for a moment before pressing in, hot and soft, sliding against his own.

Charles thought he would never get tired of this, even when they were old men, when they had both gone gray or, even worse, _bald_ , he would still want to kiss Erik every minute of every day.

He let his lips part invitingly and Erik took the bait, licking gently at his bottom lip before sucking it into his mouth, making Charles groan.

 _Yes_. Erik’s mind sighed triumphantly.

A large hand came up to cradle Charles’ head, tangling in his hair and holding him in place, exerting force just the way Charles had always liked it.

He lapped at Erik’s mouth a little desperately, the fact that they were going to have sex suddenly all he could think about.

He wasn’t even sure of the mechanics, but he knew he’d do whatever it took to make it happen.

He _yearned_ for Erik, he had for nearly three years, and now he was finally going to get to have him.

Erik’s hands came up to fumble at the buttons of his cardigan, his thoughts an amusing blur of curses for the buttons being plastic, untouchable with his power.

He managed to wrestle them free, though, and pushed the material aside, letting it bunch over Charles’ shoulders as he stroked his hands down his torso, petting over the smooth material of his shirt, as his mouth pressed insistently against Charles’. More plastic buttons, and then Erik had his hands on him, for the first time in so long, and Charles couldn’t help but groan as those perfect large hands stroked over his flesh, petting him gently.

Charles leaned into the touch, his pulse racing as Erik’s hands slid over his stomach. He blushed at the slight paunch that had formed over the years stuck in his infernal chair, but Erik didn’t even falter, just cupped his hands over Charles’ slightly wider waist and squeezed gently, making him gasp.

He reached out blindly, unwilling to pull away from the kiss for even a second, and found the hem of Erik’s turtleneck, bunching the fabric in his hands as he tugged insistently upward.

Erik chuckled into his mouth and then pulled back, and Charles whimpered even though it was at his behest.

But then Erik was stripping the fabric away, revealing a torso just as slim and muscular as the last time Charles had seen it, that last desperate night before everything changed.

Erik was so trim, his waist whittled down to nothing but hard muscle and sinew, and Charles couldn’t keep his hands to himself. He stroked down Erik’s front, one long touch, feeling the ridges of his muscles and the softness of his skin. Erik bit his lip as Charles skirted past a dusky pink nipple, and his stomach jumped as Charles dipped his finger into the indent of his navel.

Charles reached out, with his mind and his hands, and was gratified to find that Erik was thinking of nothing but his touch. His whole world seemed to have centred in on Charles and Charles basked in the attention.

“Charles,” Erik choked out, as his hands settled low on the other man’s waist, just above the line of his trousers. “Tell me how to do this.”

“You were always the expert, my friend,” Charles admitted; a half-truth. There had been times at Oxford, when Raven stayed home, and none of the auburn haired or green eyed or otherwise slightly-mutated girls at the pub caught his eye. When he couldn’t bring himself to play pretend, and put his hands on their rounded hips and feel the soft press of their full breasts against his chest.

And then he would go to a different sort of bar altogether, one that Raven didn’t even know existed, and soon he would find himself with a chest as flat as his own pressed against him, the rough burn of stubble on his chin, and hands far larger than his own exploring his body. He found out what it was like to tip his head up to a kiss, to be the one pressed back into a wall, into a bed.

And yet, Erik had always been so much more confident, even in the bedroom, and Charles had submitted to him with ease.

“I think, though, that the first step would be getting out of this chair.”

Erik’s eyes lit up, and he stood, smiling down at Charles fondly. “May I?” he asked, and for a second Charles didn’t know what he wanted, but then an image flashed into his mind, of Charles’ weight in his arms, and he reached up, allowing Erik a liberty that no one else got to take.

The man swept him up easily, despite the extra pounds his had gained in his sedentary lifestyle, despite the dead weight of his useless legs. Charles wrapped his arms around Erik’s neck and leaned in, mouthing the skin he found there.

 _“Charles_ ,” Erik groaned, stumbling his way to the bed. He laid Charles down so gently, like he was made of glass.

“Erik, you don’t have to be so careful with me,” Charles told him with a smile, beckoning him down. He remembered how rough the other man could be when he was in a certain mood, when Charles got him worked up just right. He would just take what he wanted, hold Charles down and have his way with him, growling low in his throat and leaving Charles marked and exhausted.

But.

“I want to be,” Erik whispered softly, lying down at Charles side, his touch tender.

“Oh.” Charles searched Erik’s thoughts and found it was entirely true. Lust thrummed through him, but it was woven through with affection, tenderness and care. An image flashed into Charles’ mind, and his breath caught. Erik wanted to treat him like he did his metals, bending and shaping them with infinite care, patience and precision.

The old Erik thought of metal as nothing but a weapon, something to be controlled, used.

This Erik thought of it as an old friend.

Charles shifted on the bed, curling into Erik as best he could, and trying to forget what had come before.

Comparing the Erik he knew with the Erik he was with now wouldn’t get them anywhere.

And if he longed for a slightly rougher touch, he had to admit that this felt good, too. Erik stroked down his side, the curve of his hip, and gripped him there, thumbing at the skin just above his trousers.

“You can’t feel your legs at all?”

“No,” Charles confirmed.

“But you can—?”

Charles had to smile at Erik’s shyness, his hesitance. “It’s never stopped me when I’m alone,” he said, flashing the other man his best cheeky grin.

Gratifyingly, Erik’s eyes darkened. “Now there’s a mental image,” he said, his voice gone rough. He dropped his hand to the button on Charles’ trousers, hesitating over it. “May I?”

“I insist.”

Erik shot him a grin as he thumbed the button open, using his powers to drag the zipper down as he did so. Charles had always loved watching Erik use his mutation, the casual ease with which he manipulated the world around him. Charles’ power was vast—terrifying to some—but it was mostly internal, and he loved the outward show of dominance over the laws of nature that comprised Erik’s power.

Zipper down, Erik pushed at the fabric, guiding it down over his hips. Charles wanted to arch, to lift up to let Erik slide his trousers off with ease, to show his eagerness. But all he could do was lie there, and watch as Erik struggled to maneuver the fabric off of his body. He frowned, his displeasure threatening to obscure the wonder that was watching Erik strip him.

He refused to let it, though; he was determined to enjoy every second of this.

He knew what it was like to go without, to long for Erik and not be able to have him. Now that the man was here, in his bed, he was going to make the most of it.

Charles was half-hard just from anticipation, and he grew harder as Erik groaned at the sight.

“Oh, Charles,” he said, resting his forehead against Charles’ chest for a moment. “I don’t remember, but I’m certain I missed this. I _must_ have.”

Later, Charles would wonder if that was true, if Erik had longed for him the way Charles had pined for Erik. But right now he just stroked Erik’s hair out of his face, cupping his hand around the back of his neck, demanding.

Erik tipped his head up and grinned, a quick flash of teeth, as he crawled up Charles’ body, bearing him back to the pillows. Their lips met, wet and heated, as Erik reached down, smoothly spreading Charles’ legs.

He sighed into the other man’s mouth, only wishing he could feel it, the touch of Erik’s strong hands on his thighs, pushing them apart, forcing his way in between them.

But he could feel the cant of Erik’s hips against his own, the feel of Erik’s arousal even through the trousers he still wore.

“Not fair, my friend,” Charles panted against his mouth. “You have me at a disadvantage.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Erik laughed, lifting his hips up only enough to get a hand between them, shoving the fabric down and out of the way.

And then he was dropping his full weight on Charles, pressing him into the bed, surrounding him with his flesh, his scent, his touch.

Charles arched as best he could, wriggling his torso to urge Erik closer.

“Please,” he said, and reached out, pushing _lustheatwant_ at Erik, making him groan and pant with the force of Charles’ desire.

“You can feel this?” Erik asked, reaching a hand between them to touch Charles, pressing in between his legs to feel him there.

“Yes,” Charles moaned.

“And this?” Erik asked, and he was slipping inside, just dipping in to make Charles feel the stretch, the pleasant burn.

“Yes.”

 _In the bathroom_ , Charles projected, thinking very hard about a certain tube, hidden in the back of one of the drawers.

“What?” Erik mumbled, his gaze focused down between their bodies. “ _Oh._ Oh, yes.”

And then he was scrambling up, and Charles was treated to a sight he thought he’d never tire of; the play of muscles beneath Erik’s smooth flesh as he walked away, into the bathroom, the clench of his tight ass as he moved.

“God,” Charles groaned, letting his head fall back against the pillows.

And then Erik was back, smiling down at him lasciviously as he dropped the lube to the pillow beside them.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“I’ve been ready for years,” Charles answered truthfully, and then Erik’s hand was back, slick and circling his entrance, dipping inside and driving him mad with want.

“Please, please,” he begged as Erik prepared him, gently but insistently, his fingers never ceasing their busy activity between Charles’ legs.

And then he was rolling on top of him, bracing Charles’ legs wide, and pressing in, in, inexorably _in_ , until Charles thought he should feel it at the back of his throat.

“Oh, Charles,” Erik groaned, squeezing his eyes shut, and the rush of love that pulsed out at him was almost overwhelming.

Charles clutched at him, his hands skidding over the slick flesh of Erik’s back, sliding in the sweat that beaded there as Erik moved over him. He threw his head back and let himself get lost in the sensation, in the feel of Erik’s body after all this time.

 _ErikErikErik_ , he chanted, unsure of whether he was forming the words in his throat or his mind, knowing it didn’t matter. Erik panted in his ear, and reached to twine the fingers of one hand with Charles’.

Charles squeezed down on the touch and let himself go, shuddering under Erik and crying out.

“ _Oh_ ,” Erik breathed, rearing up to watch him fall apart, and then he was wrenching Charles’ legs up, over his arms as he rocked back on his heels, pulsing into him until his face screwed up and he bit his lip, and came with a full-body shiver.

“Charles,” he breathed, collapsing down beside him. “Why would we ever stop doing that?”

“I don’t know, my friend,” he replied. And in that moment, staring into Erik’s blue eyes, he truly didn’t.

_____________________________________________________________________

END PART ONE


	9. Part Two

PART TWO

 

Erik, woke, disoriented. It was a feeling he had grown accustomed to over the last few weeks, waking and not knowing where—or _who_ —he was.

Now, though, the source of confusion was the warm body in his arms, the legs tangled with his own, the soft hair tickling his nose. He blinked his eyes open, sleepily focusing on the brown curls mere inches from his face.

 _Charles._

The previous night came back in a rush of warm skin, wet lips, and the nearly overwhelming affection he felt for the other man.

Even if Charles weren’t the noble, kind, amazing man that he was, how could Erik help but feel that way? He had been entirely at Charles’ mercy since the moment he woke with no memories but his illness, the small bedroom he was in, and Charles. The man provided his food, his shelter, his care—how could Erik help but love him?

And yet Charles _was_ a kind, noble, amazing man, and Erik felt so grateful that it had been Charles who he woke to, Charles the only face he knew.

It had been terrifying, realizing his mind was a complete blank, being sure of only one thing: his own name, the only thing lingering in the empty, white expanse of his mind.

He remembered his illness—strange and sometimes terrifying fever dreams.

A red-skinned devil appearing in a burst of smoke, looming over him like he had come to drag Erik off to Hell.

A wounded-looking girl, wings unfurling from her back, rising into the air with every gossamer beat and that fragile look permanently etched onto her pretty face.

Other beds, other rooms, other places flashing before his eyes, a psychedelic jumble of colours and sounds, pulsing over him.

And then Charles.

The world seemed to come to a stand still and all Erik could hear was the sound of his own laboured breathing and all he could feel was the cool touch of Charles’ hand on his face, the perfect respite from the feverish heat that oppressed him.

Charles, who had taken care of him, told him who he was and shown him the amazing power that rested within himself.

Charles, who lay sleeping peacefully curled in his arms. Erik tightened his grip, unconsciously drawing the other man closer.

“Hmm?” Charles stirred, murmuring a soft, sleepy sound that made Erik’s chest ache with the intensity of his feelings.

He loosened his grip, letting Charles turn in his arms, and gazed into those astonishing blue eyes, hazy with sleep. He watched, entranced, as a light flush spread over the man’s face, brightening his cheeks and creeping down the length of his pale throat, to where his flesh bore the mark of Erik’s teeth. He could see the sleep clearing from the other man’s mind; the realization dawning that Erik was in his bed, naked.

“So last night wasn’t a dream?” Charles said, reaching up to trail light fingers over the planes of Erik’s face.

He couldn’t help but grin. “Do you dream of this often?” he teased.

Something flickered in Charles’ eyes, there and gone. “More than you know,” he murmured, dropping his gaze.

Erik reached out, cupping a hand over Charles’ slender shoulder. “And how did reality compare?” he asked, keeping his tone light.

There were moments—just fleeting moments—when Charles shuttered himself, the light in his bright eyes dimming. Sometimes Erik couldn’t discern the reason, but it always happened when Charles spoke of _before_ , of the fact that they had, apparently, been separated for some indeterminate amount of time.

Erik never pressed, happy to guide Charles back to the present, to coax a smile to his red lips.

But he wondered what had happened between them. What on earth could have driven them apart?

Perhaps they argued—though what could have been serious enough to keep them separated for so long? He couldn’t imagine willingly keeping his distance from Charles—he had felt the pull of the other man from the moment he woke from his fever dreams, thrumming deep within him, as inexorably a part of him as the metal around him. That feeling had made it easy to guess the nature of their relationship—Charles seemed to own a very piece of his soul. Of course they had been lovers.

And now they were again, and Erik refused to let the ghost of their past interfere with their future.

“There’s no comparison,” Charles responded, a soft smile chasing the guarded look out of his eyes.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Erik said, sliding closer. “But I’m sure I have room to improve.”

“Well,” Charles laughed against his lips, “practice does make perfect.”

 

______________________________________________________________________

 

They descended for breakfast together, side-by-side, but the moment they reached the kitchen Charles untangled his fingers from Erik’s. Surprise—and maybe a hint of hurt—must have shown in his eyes, because Charles paused, laying a gentle hand on Erik’s arm.

“This is a place of tolerance and acceptance,” he explained softly, “but not everyone will want our relationship flaunted in front of them.”

There was something more, something lingering unsaid behind Charles’ words. But Erik didn’t press. The morning was a happy one—blissfully so—and he intended to keep in that way.

“I understand,” he said, taking a step back to leave an appropriate amount of space between them. “Shall we?”

The grateful smile Charles flashed him almost made the distance worthwhile.

“Good morning,” Charles said cheerfully as they strolled into the vast kitchen.

Alex and Sean were already at the table, hunched over their own breakfasts, although Hank and the children were nowhere in sight.

“I bet it is,” the blond replied with a snort, focusing his hard gaze on the bowl of cereal in front of him.

Charles stilled. “I beg your pardon?”

Alex looked up, eyes narrowed. “I guess you also had a _good night_ last night,” he said flatly.

Charles frowned, turning helpless blue eyes on Sean, who was flushing a colour that rivalled that of his fiery hair.

“You were kind of projecting last night,” he mumbled, not quite meeting either of their eyes. “It wasn’t exactly anything we wanted to hear.”

Charles blanched. Erik glanced over at him, seeing him floundering for what to say.

“Well,” Erik said cheerfully, stepping smoothly up to the other man’s side, “so much for discretion.” After a quick glance at Charles to gage his reaction, Erik reached for his hand.

“Really?” Alex demanded angrily, dropping his spoon with a clatter into his bowl.

Erik frowned. He hadn’t gotten a chance to know the blond boy—Alex kept his distance, seemingly always busy with something for the school whenever Erik was around. But he knew he was Charles’ employee, and damned if he was going to let him talk to Charles that way.

“Hey,” he said sternly. “I know some people say homosexuality is wrong—”

Alex looked at him with surprise. “Screw that,” he interrupted. “Charles can sleep with who he wants. He could screw Hank for all I care.”

At any other time Erik would have laughed at the look that cross Sean’s face at that mental image.

“It’s _you_ I have a problem with,” Alex finished, standing abruptly from his place at the table.

“Look, I understand that you’re just being protective,” Erik said, placating, squeezing Charles’ hand in his own. “I don’t know everything that happened between us before, but I can promise you that I love Charles, and I’ll do everything in my power not to hurt him.”

Surprise flashed in the boy’s eyes, making Erik wonder. Were those words he had never spoken before, or just never said in front of other people?

“Yeah, well, we’ve all heard that before,” Alex scoffed. “I hope you know what you’re doing, “he said to Charles before turning and storming out of the room.

After a moment, Sean stood to follow. “For what it’s worth, Professor,” he said hesitantly. “I’m happy for you.”

He trailed after Alex, calling the blond boy’s name and leaving Erik and Charles alone in the cavernous room.

“Charles,” Erik began, reaching to grasp both of the man’s hands, pulling him to bring them face-to-face. “I’ve been reluctant to ask, when you so obviously don’t want to talk about it. But I need to know: what happened between us? _Before_?”

“Oh, Erik,” Charles said, shifting his gaze away. “Now’s not really the time, is it?”

“When would be the time?” he pressed, holding Charles still. “Alex hates me. Why?”

“Things…weren’t always smooth between us,” Charles said evasively. “Alex is merely protective of me.”

Erik knew that wasn’t it, that wasn’t everything by a long shot. But he could also see that Charles didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t even seem to want to think about it. He sighed. “You will tell me one day, won’t you? Or do I have to wait until my memories come back?”

Charles’ hands jerked in his. “No. I don’t want that,” he said, and Erik frowned, for a moment wondering just what the other man was referring to.

_________________________________________________________________________

 

Erik was reading in Charles’ study—or what he liked to think of as _their_ study—one of the novels Charles kept hidden away behind his genetic tomes, a trashy spy thriller that at turns made Erik’s blood pump and made him scoff at the inaccuracies depicted therein.

 _How_ he knew they were inaccuracies—that that wasn’t the way to intercept a transmission, to tap a phone line, to tail a mark, that if you wanted to keep a man talking you’d never stab him _there_ —he couldn’t say. The knowledge rose up to the surface of his mind with the turn of every page, and yet, when he went chasing the half-remembered fact down, it disappeared again into the ether.

He was just reading a particularly ludicrous torture scene— _really, the man would be dead already,_ Erik snorted—when voices rose up from the floor below, loud and angry.

Erik froze, straining to hear. Alex had a hot head, as breakfast the other day had shown, and sometimes he went off, on Sean, on Hank and—very rarely—even on Charles.

But he couldn’t make out the rough strains of Alex’s voice. Instead, he could hear Charles, words pitched low and consolatory, and an unknown female voice, rising high and strained.

He was out of his chair as he realized it wasn’t one of the girls—not Ororo or Lorna or Jean, upset about a training session.

It was an adult woman, shouting the house down around Charles’ ears.

He didn’t know what it could be about, the words were rushed and hard to make out, but he was going to lend what help he could.

He was out of the room and down the stairs in an instant.

In the foyer was Charles, neck strained as he maintained eye contact with the woman looming over him.

The woman with deep blue skin, scales, and scarlet hair.

Erik froze, his eyes roaming over the two figures in front of him.

 _The woman was in his bed, nothing but the white sheet covering her slender blue form. She trailed her hand over the covers, inviting._

Erik shook his head, shocked.

Where had that come from?

The woman was beautiful, certainly, the colour of her skin deep and saturated, proclaiming her mutant genes for the whole world to see. But Erik had Charles, loved Charles—he didn’t want anyone else in his bed.

 _The woman, dressed this time, in a ridiculous yellow jumpsuit, watched him with wary eyes. He stretched out his hand; this time, he was calling to her. After a moment, she stepped towards him._

Erik could practically feel the sand under his feet, the hot sun on his back, his hair, wet with sweat, sticking to his head under a heavy…metal helmet?

He clutched the banister, his heart pounding.

“You can’t _hold_ him here,” the blue woman was saying—or, really, screaming. “He’s not your prisoner.”

“I told you, he’s here of his own free will.”

“Well, forgive me if I don’t believe you,” the woman snarled. “Maybe if you’d let him tell me himself.”

“I assure you,” Erik said, trying to keep his voice steady, “that no one is being held prisoner in this house.” He was disoriented, but he wasn’t going to let Charles face those accusations alone.

The woman’s head snapped up, bright yellow eyes narrowing in on him.

“Magneto!” She cried.

 _We were thinking, you should be called Magneto, and you should be Professor X!_ a triumphant voice called in his head.

“Raven?” he said, trying out the name that floated to his tongue.

Charles spun his chair, eyes wide with horror.

The woman frowned.

 _I never want to hear that name again_ , the voice snarled, forcing its way up out of the fog of his memories. _That’s the name of a blonde girl with blue eyes and rosy pink cheeks. An insipid girl who lets everyone else make her decisions for her._

Erik shook his head again, as if that could shake off the confusion.

“Magneto, what are you doing? Why didn’t you call if you were feeling better? We would have come for you.”

“I—” Erik began. He knew this woman—obviously he knew her well. Charles had told him there was no family to call, no friends who were waiting for him, no one to inform of his recovery.

Charles had lied.

“What did you do to him?” the woman hissed at Charles, snarling like an angry cat.

“He didn’t do anything,” Erik said quickly, pushing away his doubts. He loved Charles. Charles loved him.

“Then why didn’t you call me?” the woman said helplessly.

 _Maybe we could call_? he heard that same voice saying, but quiet, timid. _Just to see how he’s doing?_

 _No._ Erik heard his own voice, cutting her off sharply. _If you miss him that badly you can go crawling back to him and his damned X-Men._

And _that_ , that brought a flash of Charles, standing, _walking_ , in a yellow jumpsuit like the one he remembered the woman wearing. Of Alex and Sean, looking ridiculously young, dressed the same. They were all looking at him with serious eyes.

“Mystique,” he tried, a second name echoing in his mind.

“Magneto,” she said, imploringly, “we need you to come home.”

 _Home._

It was an empty word for him, completely devoid of meaning. His whole life, it had just been a word, a syllable, four letters with no associations, no memories, no importance. Except for the past few weeks, here in the school. These dark halls and well-appointed rooms, these rolling grounds, and hidden training areas. _This_ was his home.

Wasn’t it?

“You—” Erik began, turning his eyes to Charles, who was watching the exchange helplessly, his hands squeezed tight on the arms of his chair, knuckles white. “You didn’t tell me,” he said, the weight of betrayal settling in his chest.

 _He deflected the bullets easily, swatting them aside like gnats out of the air. Did she really think that would stop him? Was she that stupid, that confident of her own powers as a CIA agent that she thought a tiny, metal bullet could even slow him down? The missiles hung in the air as he waved his hand impatiently, tossing the bullets off their course._

 _He_ felt _it, the metal sinking into flesh, tearing at skin and muscle and sinew before it hit bone; felt the resounding_ thunk _of the bullet as it ricocheted off of Charles’ spine._

 _He heard Charles hit the ground behind him._

“You didn’t tell me anything,” he said.

The years stretched out before him, the years that he had been separated from Charles, on the run, hunted down by the government and by Charles himself.

The years of anger, disappointment, betrayal, on both sides.

“Erik—” Charles began helplessly, rolling forward.

Erik held up a hand, cutting him off. “It’s Magneto,” he said, a coldness swelling inside him. He descended the rest of the staircase. “Mystique, let’s go.”

 _Erik,_ the word pulsed in his mind. He needed to get his helmet back. _Erik, please don’t leave me again._

The door slammed shut behind him.

__________________________________________________________________ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news: this story is no longer a WIP, and will be a total of 16 chapters.


	10. Chapter Ten

For a brief moment, Erik spared a thought for packing, for all the belongings he was leaving behind.

And then, with a pang, he realized they weren’t really _his_ belongings.

They were things Charles had bought for him, things that Charles thought he should own.

To be the person Charles thought he should be.

There were the turtlenecks and slacks, that reminded the other man of the Erik he had first met in Miami, before the helmet, before the cape, before _Magneto._

There were the little bits of metal, bought for Erik to play with, to treat his gift like a toy, rather than a weapon.

They were more Charles’ belongings than Erik’s, not because he paid for them, but because they represented everything that Charles wanted Erik to be. And everything he wasn’t.

Erik frowned, his features hardening as he strode by Mystique’s side.

“Where’s my helmet?” he asked sharply.

“In the car. I figured you’d want it.”

“And you left me without it because?”

“Angel,” Mystique said shortly, her tone harsh. “She thought it would serve as a ‘peace offering’ for Charles.”

Erik sighed. The girl was probably correct, as loath as he was to be without his helmet for even a minute these days.

It wasn’t even that he thought Charles would pry—although he knew the man had no compunctions when he thought it was for the greater good—but the helmet had come to represent his new life, or his old new life, the one he was just foggily remembering. It represented everything he had left behind.

 _Again._

It was with a sigh of relief that he placed the metal on his head, settling into place like it had never been gone. He couldn’t _feel_ its powers, but still he somehow felt that an emptiness descended over him, knowing that Charles couldn’t get to him.

Mystique sat at his side in the back of the car, Janos at the wheel, and gave him an inscrutable look.

“Do you have something to say?” he finally asked.

“No,” she said sullenly. “Actually, yes—What were you doing there for so long?”  
 _Living,_ Erik thought. _learning_. About his powers, how to care about other people. _Loving_. Not just Charles, although that was a deep ache inside of him. But the children: their bright happy faces as they exercised their powers, their worries and fears that he so wanted to assuage.

His mind strayed to Lorna—with no mutation but her bright green hair, no power that he could turn to his advantage, nothing that would make her a tool, a weapon.

She was useless, as far as the Brotherhood was concerned.

But she was a bright, amusing child, fiercely intelligent with an infectious laugh.

Before, he would have turned his back on her, dismissing her out of hand.

He thought of the shy smiles she had given him, the way she lingered nearby, delighting in his company, in his small demonstrations of his power.

He shook his head, shaking away the ache that wormed its way into his chest at the thoughts.

How to explain the weeks of silence to Mystique, and the rest of the Brotherhood?

“The illness took a long time to recover from,” he said shortly, telling her nothing more. The memory loss would make him seem weak—something he couldn’t afford in front of his colleagues.

These were not friends, he had to remind himself, not even Mystique, who he had known for the longest. They followed him because he was powerful, because he was intimidating—because none of them thought they could overthrow him.

He thought of the X-Men, the way the discussed every issue, the way they argued and yelled at each other, but always worked things out. The way they seemed to be equals in the house, even with Charles.

They were friends—No, more than that. They were family.

But Erik hadn’t had a family since Schmidt killed his mother.

“But I’m fine now,” he said, resolute. Letting Mystique know the conversation was over.

She frowned, but didn’t push the subject. She knew her place. Beneath him, not at his side.

His heart clenched.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

The memory slammed into him forcefully. The feel of a blade, sliding into flesh. Not just the feel of it in his hand, but the feel of every atom of metal as it parted flesh, as it delved deeper into muscle and sinew. The moist, wet feeling as blood started to spurt from the wound.

The feel of a bullet, fracturing a skull, piercing brain tissue.

The feel of a helmet, crumbling in on itself, destroying the head within it.

Metal and flesh and blood, all viscerally flooded his mind.

He knew what it was like to kill a man; how to do it instantaneously, and how to make it last.

He knew where to stab to get an hour’s worth of answers, or just a minute’s.

He had _killed_ , he realized with horror, he had taken life after life—dozens, probably hundreds. He had dragged entire buildings down, crushing every person inside.

Rationalization followed on the heels of realization; they had been bad people, they had deserved it. Nazis, bigots, scientists, torturers. They had all deserved it.

And yet, he flinched from the knowledge that they had died at his hand.

 _Kindness keeps the world afloat,_ Charles’ voice whispered in his ear, an echo of a few days before.

He had agreed with Charles so readily, the words obvious at the time.

But were they?

 _I have the power to read your mind_ , Charles told him. But it was more than that, wasn’t it?

So much more.

He had the power to suggest, to influence, to _force_. Without his helmet Erik had been entirely vulnerable. Charles could have crept into his mind and tweaked anything he wished. He could have changed everything about Erik, and Erik never would have known.

Every thought he had now was suspect. He felt disgust at the idea of killing a man, of slicing through his windpipe and listening to him sputter his last breaths. But was it his revulsion, or Charles’?

He had accepted death before, accepted the necessity of killing some to save many, to save his people from bigotry, persecution, enslavement, genocide.

He worked for the greater good; he had always been so sure of that fact.

And yet now, doubt crept into his mind.

Erik gritted his teeth against the sensation.

He knew what it was to kill, he reminded himself, and he knew what it was to enjoy it.

 

____________________________________________________

 

The first memory of the camps came to him while he was sleeping, worming its way insidiously into his mind.

Strangely, it wasn’t his mother, or the straining, bending metal gate, or even Schmidt, which first came to him.

Instead, it was hunger.

 _Overwhelming, all-encompassing hunger. The kind that gnawed at your insides, making you cramp up with pain. The kind that made it hard to eat even when food was available, making it taste like ash in your mouth, making you gag at the sensation of something solid sliding down your throat._

 _He had known deprivation, had known what it was to be poor, to go without._

 _He had had no idea of how bad it could be._

 _He stared at the door of his tiny cell, dark and foreboding in the dim light._

 _How long had he been in here? How long since someone last remembered to give him something to eat?_

 _A scrap of stale bread, tossed into the dirt at his feet._

 _He had fallen upon it ravenously, feeling the texture of grime and filth, sandy in his mouth._

 _But that had been days ago._

 _There were many things Erik wanted. He wanted his mother back. He wanted revenge. He wanted freedom._

 _But more than anything, he wanted something to eat._

Erik woke, his stomach growling in sympathy to the dream-boy he had once been. His anger was always focused on the big moments: separation from his parents, his mother’s murder, Schmidt’s torture.

He tended to forget the long stretches of quiet misery that came in between, dark and lonely with nothing but his hunger and his thirst to occupy his mind.

Days, weeks, locked in various rooms and cells. The shuffle of boots outside his door, the taunts of the soldiers. The dirt, the cold, the hunger.

That was what life at the camps was like, punctuated by moments of utter horror.

He rubbed at his eyes, feeling his stomach clench in want. He didn’t remember where the kitchen was in this house, but suddenly he felt that he’d die if he didn’t have a piece of fruit, rich and juicy and full of nutrients his body had once learned to go without.

Rickets, scurvy, pellagra…the list of diseases and disorders rattled through his mind. Behind his fear of prejudice, oppression, and genocide, these simpler fears lingered, a steady hum throughout his life, making him reach for fresh fruits and vegetables whenever possible.

To have survived the camps, and Schmidt, only to succumb to a lack of vitamin C. That was a fear he had always carried with him.

The safe house was small, and Erik found the kitchen with little trouble, hunting through the refrigerator and the cupboards for anything that would satisfy his cravings.

He ate canned peaches wistfully, thinking of the spacious and clean kitchen in Westchester. Of eating food simply for the pleasure of it, with no thoughts of starvation, of anaemia, of endless want that could not be abated.

 

__________________________________________________________

 

Settling back in with the Brotherhood was more difficult than Erik would have thought. He knew he needed to be Magneto, the uncompromising, unmerciful leader, but taking on that mantle against after so long was a struggle.

He found himself at his desk, melting down paperclips and forming them into small shapes and sculptures, almost unconsciously. The metal twisted and melted, shaping itself into pleasing little forms, ones that would make Charles smile.

“Boss?” Janos voice was timid outside his door.

Erik couldn’t quite remember if the other man had always addressed him so hesitantly, or if his people were reacting to his shift in temperament, his obvious discomfort at being back in their midst.

Surely he was scarier before, as the uncompromising Magneto, and yet, he suspected they were all unsettled by the changes in him that he couldn’t hide.

“Come in,” he barked, trying to remember how he used to sound. Gruff? Angry?

The man entered the room lightly, his small, slender form an unpleasant echo of the way Charles looked before—

Before the _accident._

And hadn’t that been a distressing realization—that Charles’ “accident” from so “long ago” was Erik’s work, the result of a careless wave of his hand.

The result of his rage, untempered by Charles’ much-flouted serenity, striking out at everyone within reach.

Even Charles.

His memories were slow to filter back in, and yet he could viscerally recall the feel of Charles in his arms, not the way he had been that last night in the mansion, sleek and sensual and purring at Erik’s touch, but broken and bloodied, limp within his grasp. He could feel the sand, gritty as it stuck to Charles’ damp skin, could feel Charles’ moist breath on his face as he panted through the pain.

Such a contrast to the way he had last touched Charles.

But worse than that, he could see the look in Charles’ eyes, the betrayal, the revulsion, as he spoke those damning words.

 _My friend, I’m afraid we do not._

“Boss?” Janos’ voice cut into his reverie and Erik looked up sharply.

He was expected to be their leader, to shoulder the weight of responsibility of all their lives, of their mission.

He could not be weighed down by the loss of one man’s legs.

“Yes?” he snapped, harsher than he meant to be.

“We’ve got something.”

 

_______________________________________________________


	11. Eleven

“It’s a research facility,” Mystique said, her lip curling in disgust.

“And what’s their work on?” Erik paged through the brief that Emma had prepared, having done reconnaissance with a thoroughness only a telepath could manage.

“Does it matter?” Mystique gave him a sharp, suspicious look. The kind she’d been throwing him since he returned. “They’re studying _mutants._ ”

“Yes, I can see that,” Erik said wearily, resisting the urge to reach up and massage his temple. The helmet weighed on him these days, no longer the comfort it once had been. “They’re studying mutations. But I don’t see in here whether there are even any mutants in the facility.”

“So?” Emma asked, confusion furrowing her porcelain brow. “They’re humans, studying mutants. Any knowledge they gain could be an advantage over us.”

Erik frowned. “Or it could be an asset to the whole mutant community. They could learn something useful.”

“They’re humans,” Emma reiterated scornfully.

“So we just kill them all, _in case_ they’re doing something to endanger our kind?” Erik asked sternly.

No one even flinched.

Was this really what his Brotherhood had become? Charles thought he was the bad guy, but Erik had his ideals, too. It was just how they enforced those ideals that was different.

He wanted to protect his kind, just as Charles did. More so, he liked to think. Charles was willing to compromise in a way Erik never would.

Not when he knew so clearly what the consequences of those compromises could be.

But this—this wasn’t protecting mutants. This was just violence, lashing out at the humans before they had even shown themselves worthy of the Brotherhood’s attention.

This was the start of genocide.

Erik would know.

He shook his head minutely, even as he saw the frowns settle into his followers’ faces.

“No, what?” Mystique asked.

“I want more information, before we go in,” Erik said, trying to sound more commanding than he felt. “I want to know what they’re studying.”

Scorn etched its way onto Mystique’s expressive face, and Erik hurried on.

“If it’s of use to use, we’re going to need to extract their files, their data.”

The table relaxed, ever so slightly.

“I’ll see what else I can find out,” Emma agreed, rising gracefully. “Are you going to complain if I give anyone a headache during my search?”

Erik closed his eyes. “Just go,” he growled.

The Brotherhood filtered out of the room, with only Mystique lingering, her eyes narrowed.

“What’s going on with you?” she asked.

Erik looked up, narrowing his own eyes in return. “Nothing.”

“It doesn’t seem like nothing.”

“You’re criticizing me for wanting all the information? For wanting to be prepared?” he taunted, pleased when Mystique blanched.

“Fine,” she said shortly. “We’ll get you all the information you could ever want. And then we’ll burn the place to the ground.”

As she stormed out, Erik was hit with the vision of a beautiful blonde girl in a short black dress, dancing on a couch as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

Then that same girl, tears tracking down her face as she cried over lives lost, Darwin’s, but also all the agents, the multitude of fully human bodies scattered around the CIA base. He watched, helplessly, so inured to death already, as she flung herself at Charles, clinging to him as she sobbed her horror out on his shoulder.

He remembered the way she had looked at him that day on the beach, fear tinged with admiration, hope and horror intermingling in her bright yellow eyes.

So when had she become the woman who just stormed out of the room, scorning his hesitance, scoffing at his concern for human life?

When had she decided that those men and women didn’t matter?

When had she decided that they deserved to die?

He closed his eyes, finally giving in to the urge to massage the bridge of his nose, awkward under the bulky helmet.

He knew it was his doing—he was the one who had changed Raven. Who had _destroyed_ Raven, leaving only Mystique in her wake.

She had been angry and humiliated and frightened when she came to him. She was just a young girl who wanted someone to tell her she was beautiful.

And he had taken advantage of that, shaping her to be another perfect killing machine.

Just like him.

 

_________________________________________________________

 

He woke, panting, with the image of Hank— _Beast_ —burned into his mind. _His doctor, his almost-friend, snarling in his face, his yellow X-Men jumpsuit bright against his blue fur. His lips pulled back to reveal his glistening fangs, and the growl that reverberated out of his chest seeming to shake the whole room._

 _He faced off against Erik—against_ Magneto _—there to put a stop to his plans, once again._

 _Because Charles had found out. Because Charles sent him._

 _He could see the disappointment shining in Hank’s eyes and knew it reflected the disappointment Charles felt._

Erik sat up shakily, wincing as he adjusted the helmet on his head. He couldn’t believe he’d been sleeping in the thing for years, so afraid of Charles getting in, getting an opening to work his magic on Erik.

It was almost laughable, now. He had spent weeks in the telepath’s presence, not only without the helmet, but without any idea that he needed it.

It’s what he had been afraid of for years, and yet it had been…nice.

He sighed, slinging his legs over the side of the bed as he gave up on sleep for the night.

He missed Charles.

He despised Charles.

The man had taken advantage of him at his very weakest, had kept him from his followers, from his mission. And who knows what else. Erik had no idea how much the man had been in his mind, looking, searching, tinkering.

And yet, he missed him, so, so much.

He didn’t just miss those few weeks, the blossoming of feelings that had taken him completely by surprise, the realization that Charles was returning his every look, interest and affection sparkling in his blue eyes. He wasn’t just left to agonize over that one night, those few hours of touching Charles, of feeling that soft skin under his hands.

Because every time he thought of that night, the memory of another night would sneak in. He’d remember how Charles looked under him, and suddenly, he’d remember how he looked _over_ him, healthy legs clenched on either side of Erik’s hips, his body undulating as he rose and fell above Erik.

Every look, every smile, every touch—they all had echoes, reverberating through the years, layer upon layer of memories.

He had loved Charles, not once, but twice. He had fallen for him and his sunny smiles and his ridiculous ideals twice over, and no matter how angry it made him, he couldn’t shake the _want_ that throbbed within him.

He remembered missing Charles, now, remembered the sleepless nights right after he left, aching for the other man. He remembered his longing, his frustration, his anger, as time passed and the X-Men began to be a thorn in his side.

And now he was living it all again, in memory and reality.

He paced to the window of the compound _du jour_ , small and sterile, just like the rest of the surroundings. Outside was pitch black, but Erik could feel the twenty-foot fence surrounding the building, the barbed wire curled over it’s top. The grounds were overgrown and unkempt, the building appearing abandoned by design.

It was a far cry from the Westchester mansion.

He had grown to consider that house home, to feel comfortable there, to feel welcome. He had played with the children, talked with Hank, and flirted with Charles within its walls.

But somehow he had to return to thinking of it as the base of his enemies.

He looked out at his bleak surroundings, and tried to remember that this was what he wanted.

This was what he had chosen.

 

________________________________________________________

 

“They’ve got mutants,” Mystique said defiantly, slamming a stack of papers down in front of him.

Erik squinted at them wearily. “You’re sure?”

“Emma confirmed. There are mutants in the building.”

Erik looked up at her, seeing the righteous indignation burning in her yellow eyes. A look that he foggily remembered seeing in his own, every time he glanced in a mirror.

He picked up the papers, shuffling through, trying to pick out the pertinent information at a glance. “Being experimented on?” he asked, feeling his anger start to rise.

It was a good feeling, a familiar feeling.

“What else would they be doing with them?” Mystique sneered.

Erik looked up sharply. “Emma didn’t say?”

The woman rolled her eyes. “You know she doesn’t have that kind of range or control. It’s not like she’s—“ She stopped mid-word.

“Charles,” Erik supplied.

Mystique winced.

No, Emma was nothing like Charles. She didn’t have his power, but she also didn’t have his morals, his ideals. She was happy to commit any atrocity in the name of mutant rights—even Shaw’s dream of the end of all humankind.

 _Emma looked at him, cold and calculating. She narrowed her eyes, despite his ever-present helmet, as she slunk closer._

 _“So what now?” she all but purred, hands on her slender hips. She cast her eyes around the sparse safe house Azazel had transported them to. “Do you even have a bed in here?”_

 _“I’ll make sleeping arrangements,” Erik grunted, discomfited by her empty gaze._

 _“I wasn’t talking about sleeping, sugar.”_

She was a cold, crafty bitch, who threw herself at Erik at every opportunity. If she wasn’t warming the boss’s bed, it seemed she didn’t know what to do with herself.

Erik wore his helmet as much to keep her out as Charles. Maybe more.

“So what _does_ she know?” he asked, impatient.

“Three mutants on the premises. Twenty humans. Government funding,” Mystique rattled off.

Erik squeezed his eyes shut. It was exactly the kind of set-up he used to jump at, racing in, guns blazing.

A single mutant was normally enough to set him off.

He’d bring the whole building down, along with every human in it.

Now, though, he hesitated.

Why?

“Tell Azazel to be ready in an hour,” he said, trying to sound resolute.

“We’re bringing the whole team?”

Erik paused. “Let’s leave Sabretooth.”

Mystique gave him a sharp look. “Why?”

“Someone’s got to guard the house,” Erik snapped.

Sabretooth wanted bloodshed, no matter what the mission. He would tear the humans limb from limb and watch them bleed out, a spluttering, crying stump of a torso.

Erik had seen him do it.

“Fine. One hour,” Mystique bustled out of the office, in full mission-mode.

She was efficient and ruthless. Just what Erik had wanted in a second-in-command.

He hadn’t seen her blonde form since the night she showed up in his bed.

He hadn’t seen compassion in her eyes in almost as long.

What would Charles say, he wondered, if he knew how Erik had changed his sister, twisted and bent her to his will?

She had been so quick to laugh, offering easy smiles to those around her. She had liked to dance, to sing along to the radio. She loved Charles.

And now…?

Now she was what he had made her—a killer, just like him.

 

_____________________________________________________


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Erik stops thinking, and starts doing.

It was convenient, not having to worry about travel. They didn’t need a twenty-year-old super genius to build them a supersonic jet (which was for the best, since those were hard to come by). There were also no road trips, long days on the highway, moving from town to town, the sound of the radio uninterrupted by the gentle press of another’s thoughts against his own. There were no little motels, no cramped rooms with only one bed to share. There was no need for the whirr of the engine, the warmth of the sun through the windshield, and the companionship of that shared, small space.

There was also almost no way to stall, when all it took to get to their mark was a grip on Azazel’s red skin.

Erik stood in a line with the rest of his Brotherhood, trying to remember where he’d left his rage, his sense of right and wrong.

As in, he was right, and the humans were wrong.

Every time.

He glanced down the line, taking in Mystique’s determined expression, Emma’s persistent apathy, Angel’s nerves, and Riptide’s quiet intensity. They were all geared up, and ready to fight.

He sighed, reaching out for Azazel on his left and Mystique on his right. “Alright, everyone,” he said. “Our priority is to extract the mutants.”

Mystique gave him a hard look. “It always is.”

“Then let’s go.”

In a poof of sour-smelling sulphur they arrived, appearing a hall of the medical building. A startled young man dropped his clipboard.

“Where are the mutants?” Erik snarled without preamble.

“What?” the man stammered.

“The mutants. The powered people,” he said, the words coming to his lips unbidden. They had been his words—in the school with Charles.

“The—“ the man gasped as Erik loomed over him, his mouth set in a hard line.

“Just kill him,” Emma rolled her eyes. “I can find our people.”

Erik frowned.

Is that what he would have done, before? Just snuffed out this man’s life without a thought?

The memories that pressed at the back of his mind told him it was.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man gasped, eyes wide with fear.

He shot a glance at Emma. “Really?” she asked, incredulous. At his hard look, she sighed. “Fine.” her eyes narrowed in on the young man. “He’s telling the truth,” she finally admitted.

Erik would deny he breathed a sigh of relief, if asked.

“You said there were mutants here,” he said instead.

“There are,” Emma insisted, affronted.

“Fine. Lead us to them.” He turned from the cowering man.

“You’re just going to leave him?” Mystique asked. “He’ll sound the alarm.”

Erik looked at his followers. Although he knew them, knew them well, he was shocked at what he found in their eyes.

They would all kill the man without hesitation, merely for having the bad luck to be in this hallway when they arrived.

“Put him to sleep,” he snapped at Emma, striding off down the hall before she could argue. He heard the heavy _thump_ of a body hitting the floor behind him.

Emma was back at his side in a matter of moments, glaring at him with all she had.

Erik ignored it. “Which way?” he demanded.

She sighed, closing her eyes. “The basement.”

And wasn’t that always the way? Small, dark, windowless rooms, cold and sterile.

He set his jaw, increasing the speed of his steps.

Despite the memories pressing in on him—of cold, dank rooms with dirty floors—the basement was just like the rest of the facility: white and sterile, with fluorescent lights shining overhead.

The brightness did nothing to assuage the feeling that something here was very wrong.

Emma pointed to an unmarked door with a significant look, and Erik steeled himself.

He had been doing this for years—since he was a child, really, first under Schmidt’s orders, and then going back and taking out every man that Schmidt had so much as said hello to.

He didn’t remember each and every one, but he knew they were there to _be_ remembered, and that should be enough.

He reached out with his power and pulled the door right off its hinges.

His people surged in ahead of him, Mystique first, her yellow eyes alert to threats.

“They’re here!” she called, and Erik again heard the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor.

This time, he suspected they weren’t just asleep.

He strode into the room, eyes sharp, power thrumming in his veins. He was just looking for metal to twist, to bend, to hurt, to maim.

Azazel stood over a scientist, his formerly white lab coat blossoming scarlet.

Another man cowered in the corner with Riptide looming over him.

Still alive, and reeking of piss. Erik curled his lip. Pathetic.

He could feel the old derision and superiority coursing over him. Snivelling humans, not even fit to breathe the same air as the mutants.

 _They’re not all like this_ , a voice whispered in his mind. A voice with a crisp, British accent.

He shook his head, his gaze seeking out the girls, each working at the lock of a person—or mutant—sized cage.

He rolled his eyes. “Stand back,” he barked.

The girls jumped out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed by the cage doors, wrenching from their hinges and flying across the room.

A startled cry issued from one of the cages, and Erik strode forward, peering inside.

A girl, barely in her teens, stared back at him, eyes wide. “I didn’t see that coming,” she whispered, earning a sharp snort from the enclosure next to her.

Erik ducked his head, finding the defiant eyes of a teenage boy, angry and insolent.

 _He’s the first guy I’ve ever heard of who preferred solitary, the guard shrugged._

 _Alex looked up as the door swung open, his muscles tight, guarded, ready to run. He stared them down with hard blue eyes, but underneath it all, Erik thought he had the look of a little boy. A scared kid, locked away in a cage._

 _Like Erik had been._

“Hey, kid,” he said, knowing better than to coddle. “What’s your name?”

The boy sneered as he clambered out into the open. Despite the expression, he looked fragile and too young for all this. He was lean and wiry, and probably wasn’t more than eighteen. Erjk thought of Scott, of Bobby. Of their easy smiles, their laughter.

This kid deserved that too.

“Pyro,” the kid said, daring Erik to question it.

“Well, that sounds like you have a hell of a trick up your sleeve,” Erik replied, with a cock of an eyebrow.

“Don’t get him started,” a wry voice floated out of the third cage.

The boy, Pyro, frowned. “Are you getting us out of here, or what? I can’t wait to get away from _her_.” He jerked his thumb at the third cage. A girl, dark and exotic, peered out, her wary eyes roving over each person in the room.

Erik scanned the three of them, relieved to see they appeared at least well fed, their young skin free from bruises or other signs of physical harm. Still, their eyes were wary, haunted.

“Yeah, we’re getting out of here,” Erik agreed, gesturing the three forward, out of their metal prisons. He rounded on the scientist left alive, still cornered by Riptide.

“Are these the only mutants here?” he demanded. Emma made a protesting noise beside him, but quieted at a look. It was best to be sure.

“Y-yes,” the man answered shakily.

“And what were you doing with them?”

“Please, don’t hurt me,” he whimpered, pulling in further on himself, pressing back into the walls behind him.

Erik sneered. “That wasn’t an answer to my question. What did you want with the mutants?”

“They’re dangerous!” the man said desperately. “They shouldn’t be on the streets.”

Erik growled, striding forward, pushing Riptide aside. “That’s not up to you to decide,” he snapped, grabbing the man and hauling him to his feet. He heard a young ,feminine gasp behind him. “Tell me what you were doing with them.”

The man shook his head frantically, scrabbling to get away from Erik.

“Take every document here,” Erik called over his shoulder. He could hear the rustle of his people springing into action, combing the room.

“What were you looking for with these three?” he demanded, even as the man protested the looting of his lab, his eyes fixed over Erik’s shoulder, on the movements of the rest of his team. Erik shook him in his grasp.

“It was just the girls,” the man said frantically, eyes snapping back to Erik’s face. “The boy was a mistake.”

“Why did you keep him, then?”

A snort rang out from behind Erik. “Lab rat,” Pyro said, coming up to his side. “They tried every drug on me first, to make sure it wouldn’t kill the girls. Since they were _more important._ ”

Rage welled up in Erik, taking over everything that he was. For a moment, it was like he was back in the camps again, seeing the labs, the dozens and dozens of Jews herded in, and carried out in garbage bags. Being experimented on by Nazi doctors, because they were expendable. Because they were nothing more than livestock to their Aryan overlords.

“You make me sick,” Erik told the scientist. He reached out, feeling for any metal on the man’s body.

“Wait.” A hand landed on his arm. “Let me,” Pyro’s voice was dark.

Erik smiled, seeing the fear light in the man’s eyes. “Be my guest.” He dropped him, letting him hit the floor like a sack of potatoes.

Pyro stepped forward, a grin on his face.

“Shit,” one of the girls whispered behind them, and then the man went up in flames.

Someone gasped behind them as an impossibly hot fire spread over the man, burning skin like it was paper. He screamed, the kind of scream that only came from someone who was dying, someone who was suffering the worst pain they had ever experienced.

He screamed, even as his eyeballs melted out of his head, and his skin curled up away from flesh and sinew.

It was the kind of scream Erik heard in the camps, over and over again. The kind of scream he had learned how to elicit.

He clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder, pulling him away from the mess that once was a man. “Let’s go,” he said firmly.

His brotherhood stood behind him, five grim faces, with the two rescued girls. The one he had spoken to first had tears in her wide, alarmed eyes, but the other looked…blank.

He wondered what could have happened to a girl her age to let her face such carnage with indifference.

It was a trait that he had tried to foster in his followers, a trait that he had praised. Now, though, he shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.

“Names?” he asked, sharper than he meant to be.

“Irene,” the first girl whispered.

The other, older and darker, cocked an eyebrow. “You can call me Blindspot,” she offered wryly.

Erik knew a challenge to authority when he saw one, but now wasn’t the time. He gripped Pyro’s arm and dragged the boy forward, from where he was still standing, staring at the charred remains of his captor.

“We need to find the main office of this place,” he said. “The majority of their data will be there.”

His team nodded, sharp and focused. The young girl, Irene, looked like she might resist, but Angel laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“We’ve got you now,” she told her.

“Everyone behind me. Kill anyone we meet,” Erik ordered. He thought of the glee with which Pyro had destroyed the scientist, but shoved the image aside. This was necessary killing. Necessary to getting the kids out of there, to keeping them safe.

 

________________________________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally trying to stick to the comic canon for first class X-Men (i.e. Bobby and Jean and Scott, etc), but I needed more characters to flesh out Erik's team, and I decided to pull them from a later incarnation of the Brotherhood (according to wiki, they're all part of the third incarnation of the Brotherhood).
> 
> I'm aware that Irene/Destiny is blind, but (again, according to wiki), she lost her vision as a young teen, due to a massive surge in her power. So, this takes place before that happens.
> 
> I don't read comics myself, so I don't know enough about Destiny or Blindspot to really do them justice. Please forgive any major mistakes I make in their characterization.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

They moved into the hall carefully, tensed for battle. Erik could see the bloodlust in Mystique’s yellow eyes, the regret that she hadn’t gotten to dispatch one of the scientists herself. He knew she was angry, enraged at the idea that anyone would put a child in a cage.

Erik had long ceased to be surprised at humanity’s depravity, but that didn’t mean it didn’t infuriate him, fill him with the urge to destroy anything and anyone in his path.

Erik had been in enough military/medical facilities to have an idea of the layout—the offices were normally on the tops floors, big rooms with big windows reserved for the suits that ran the show. Cushy places they could sit back and gloat over all the wrong they were doing.

There would be a couple small, windowless rooms full of filing cabinets, policed by nothing more than a secretary in a pencil skirt, if they were lucky.

He led his troops upwards, bursting out onto the top floor in a swirl of his cape. “Spread out, find what we need,” he barked. “Angel, you’re with the girls. Pyro, with me.”

The boy visibly perked at the sign of favor, hurrying to Erik’s side with a grin. “What are we looking for?”

“Any documentation about what the fuck they’re doing here,” Erik said, already moving. “Anything that says ‘mutant’ on it, we want it.”

“And anything that doesn’t?”

“Torch it,” Erik said, giving the kid his best toothy grin.

Erik threw open the first door he came to, startling an overweight man in an expensive suit who sat behind a massive mahogany desk. “What the hell--?” the man grunted. With a wave of Erik’s hand, he was held fast, in the grip of his cushy, expensive chair. “Let me go!” he struggled. Erik laughed.

He could hear the uproar begin behind him, people surging out of their offices at the man’s cries.

He snorted, knowing the mayhem that was about to begin.

“Where are the mutant files?” he demanded.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man snarled, twisting in the metal grasp of his chair.

“I’m afraid I don’t believe you,” Erik told him, tightening his bonds.

“Magneto!” Erik wheeled around as the growl rang out behind him. Who?

Beast lunged forward, his blue fur standing on end, his lips pulled back to reveal sharp fangs. At his side, Pyro screamed.

“Hank,” he said, confusion colouring his voice. This was his doctor, his friend, bearing down on him, a snarl on his face.

“Tell your people to stop,” Beast demanded.

Erik could hear the screams all around him, as the humans tried to protect their secrets from the prying hands of the Brotherhood. A man in the corner sank to his knees, clutching his head. Another lay unconscious as Mystique stepped over his form and into a small room.

He could smell the acid of Angel’s spit, sharp and tangy on the air.

“No,” he said. They had _children_ in _cages_ , he reminded himself.

A plasma beam shot out across the crowded room, signalling the arrival of the rest of the X-Men.

Dimly, he heard the ding of the elevator arriving at their floor.

“Erik!” Charles’ voice called out frantically across the room.

Erik swung around, seeking out the source even as he frantically told himself that Charles’ _couldn’t be here._

“Who’s the cripple?” Pyro snorted as Charles wheeled into view, steering himself around overturned office furniture and other detritus of the fight.

“Shut up,” Erik snapped, pushing the kid back even as he moved forward.

In the corner, Mystique stopped, unsure.

She always did have problems facing off against her brother. Erik and the Brotherhood were lucky that Charles never came into the open conflict, choosing instead to direct his troops from a distance.

She had no problem being angry when she faced Hank in battle.

“Charles, get out of here. The Brotherhood is handling this,” Erik said firmly.

He told himself that the disappointment on Charles’ face didn’t sting.

“If you call killing everyone in sight ‘handling it’,” Alex growled, appearing at Charles’ side.

At least now he understood why the man had been so hostile to him at the mansion.

The humans cowered back, hiding themselves as the two groups of mutants squared off against each other. Sean, Alex and Hank stood at Charles’ side, defying anyone to so much as step in his direction. Slowly, his own people stopped what they were doing and appeared behind him, attempting a show of solidarity to match the X-Men’s.

“They had children in cages, Charles,” Erik snarled.

“I know,” Charles said, turning sad eyes on the three young faces who stood uncertainly by Erik’s side.

“And yet you’re going to tell me I’m _wrong_?”

“You’re not wrong to be angry, Erik,” Charles said, and Erik winced. After weeks of being only ‘Magneto’, the sound of his name in Charles’ mouth almost hurt. “You’re not wrong to come for the children, to save them.”

“But?” Erik prompted, trying to retain his fire. Trying to remember that he was angry with Charles, that he _hated_ the man.

“But you know that this—“ Charles gestured to the debris, the frightened humans, and the fallen bodies. “Is wrong.”

“Do I?” he challenged.

“Of course you do,” Charles’ voice was so confident, despite the helmet Erik wore. He felt something in him give.

“What else am I supposed to do?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound as helpless as he felt. His people shifted uncomfortably behind him, the first stirrings of discontent.

He could see a young woman—a secretary in the office, by the looks of it—crawling across the floor out of the corner of his eye, dragging herself on her belly to try and escape their notice. It should have been pathetic, the kind of thing he would laugh over with Mystique after they had killed her.

Instead, something clenched within him, pity welling up in his throat. She was young, maybe no more than twenty-two, and was here to file papers, nothing more.

Had she known what went on in the basement?

Did she deserve to die just because she had the bad luck of working in this building?

Erik frowned. If he hadn’t been able to feel the weight of his helmet, pressing into him, hadn’t been able to see it surrounding his face, shielding his mind, he would have sworn those thoughts were Charles’, not his own.

Since when did he have sympathy for the people caught up in the crossfire?

 _Men following orders_ , Charles had said, but Erik still turned the missiles around. Every man on that ship, even the ones just there to clean the decks, had seemed like a justifiable death.

Where had that certainty gone?

“Be a different man, Erik,” Charles said, rolling closer despite a warning hiss from Hank. “Be better than who you were.”

“I don’t know how to stop being who I am.”

“Yes, you do,” Charles insisted. “You did it for weeks, at the school.”

Erik shook his head, heavy with the weight of the helmet, with the weight of his guilt. “I didn’t know who I was, then.”

“You did,” Charles denied. “You knew that you love being a mutant. You knew that every mutant is wonderful and amazing. But you also knew that fear wasn’t the way to show the humans that.” Charles rolled closer, and Erik shifted as he felt his people take a step back, away from those earnest, insistent blue eyes. “What you forgot was the rage you’ve carried with you since you were a child. The pain. The suffering. You forgot what it was to hate, unconditionally.”

“I forgot my mother,” Erik countered and Charles stopped, stricken.

“You forgot the best parts of her long ago,” he said quietly. “You forgot the love she taught you. The peace. The only thing you clung to was the moment of her death.”

“Magneto,” Emma said sharply behind him, but Erik silenced her with a raised hand.

He knew what Magneto would do. He would yell, he would snarl, he would tell Charles that he knew nothing about Magneto or his mother. He would turn away from those imploring eyes and never look back.

But Erik wasn’t Magneto, not entirely, not anymore.

“The humans have to pay for what happened here,” he said, knowing everyone could hear the compromise in his voice.

“They will. The authorities will prosecute them. Kidnapping and illegal imprisonment.”

“We need to find out what they were doing.”

“Already done. I know the location of all the files and documents pertaining to the mutants.”

 _Of course he did_ , Erik thought with a sigh. Charles had inevitably plucked the information out of the relevant head the moment he set foot in the building.

He wished Emma could be that efficient.

Erik looked around the room slowly, noting the eerie stillness. Every human was frozen, the young secretary still on her belly on the floor, men and women crouched behind overturned desks and chairs.

“You’ll erase their memory?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Magneto!” Mystique snapped, surging forward. “You can’t be _agreeing_ to this! They tortured mutant children.”

Erik merely looked at Charles. “That woman,” he said, pointing to the secretary. “Did she know? Did she know about the experiments? Did she even know there were mutants in the building?”

Charles looked at the girl, his face creasing in pity. “No. She’s only ever heard of mutants on the radio and television. Her job is to file tax reports and take dictations. She’s been here four months, but thinks she’ll be leaving soon, because she’s fairly certain her boyfriend is going to propose. They’ve been dating since high school.”

Erik nodded. She was a pretty young thing. Of course there was someone who loved her.

“Raven,” Charles said, his tone hesitant for the first time since he wheeled out of the elevator. The girl flinched back at the sound of the name. “The people who did this will be punished. I run a school now. I care about mutant children as much as you do. Please, trust that I won’t let anyone get away with these crimes.” At the look on her face he hurried on. “Or don’t trust me. Help me to make sure it happens. Work with me to see them behind bars.”

“All the files come with us,” Mystique said, as much of an agreement as she was willing to vocalize.

Charles nodded. “The lawyers will need to know what’s in them. I’ll put them in touch with you directly?”

Alex stepped forward, ready to object, but Charles held up a hand, stilling him.

Mystique narrowed her eyes, but gave a stiff nod.

“Everyone not involved will be wiped of their memories of today,” Charles said, addressing the Brotherhood as a whole. “Everyone who was involved will be extracted and held.”

“By you?” Azazel asked, in his rough accent.

“For now.”

“You don’t trust us, sugar?” Emma sounded amused.

Charles tilted his head, meeting her eyes alone. “Not entirely.”

Erik told himself it didn’t hurt. How could it? He didn’t trust Charles, either. _Not entirely._

“Well, then,” he said, feeling hesitant, unsure. It was not the normal way he concluded a mission. The Brotherhood normally went out in a blaze of fire—sometimes literally—only destruction left in their wake.

“Would you mind lending a hand to the clean up?” Charles indicated the fallen furniture.

 _Clean up_ , Erik thought with a shake of his head. _Christ_. And yet, it did not occur to him to argue.

The furniture righted itself in a flurry, pulling up by the screws that held it together.

“I suppose we’ll be going, then.” He said as the dust settled.

“You think we’re going to let you keep them?” Alex asked, looking up from where he had stooped to gather fallen papers.

“No one’s _keeping_ anyone. Everyone is a free man or woman, here. We’re here to take them out of their cages.”

“And convert them to your fucked up cause?” Alex sneered.

“And you’d do any better?”

“We run a _school_ ,” Alex reminded him, earning a snort from Hank.

“Why don’t we ask the children what they’d like?” Charles interrupted, the stillness of the room seeming to reflect the calm in his crisp, upper-class voice.

 _The voice of compromise_ , Erik thought. _As always._

He had learned long ago that compromise was for the weak, for those who wanted to end up dead.

Wasn’t it?

The day’s death toll currently stood at two, far less that the dozens he had planned for.

Because of Charles.

“I’m not a child,” the girl who called herself ‘Blindspot’ spat. “And I’m not much into school or pacifism for that matter. So, thanks but no thanks.”

“I’m sticking with you,” Pyro said, directing his words to Erik alone, stepping closer by his side. Erik could see hero-worship flickering in his eyes, despite the doubts his cease-fire had surely raised. He nodded to the boy, anyway.

“I think I’d like to go with you.”

Erik looked around, having almost forgotten about the young girl clinging to Angel’s side. She shot Angel an apologetic look as she stepped away, towards the sunny smile Charles offered her. “I like school,” she clarified with a quick look at Blindspot. “And I can see that I’ll be happy there.”

The word choice was odd, but Charles merely smiled. “We’ll be happy to have you, Irene.” he held out a hand to her, and just like that she broke away from the Brotherhood’s ranks, never looking back.

Erik’s heart clenched—not at the loss of the girl, but because a part of him wanted to follow her.

“She was too young to be of any use, anyway,” Mystique said under her breath, although she looked after the girl with sad eyes.

“Till next time, then,” Erik said stiffly, reaching for Azazel.

“I hope not,” Charles replied, just as they disappeared from the room.

 

____________________________________________________________


	14. Fourteen

Erik would never admit to brooding, no matter what Emma accused him of. Still, he would admit that he was feeling a bit… _off_ following the mission, keeping to himself in his office for the most part, to avoid the hopeful stares of Pyro, and the knowing gazes of his team.

He hadn’t been able to kill those people.

That’s what it came down to.

And not just because Charles had shown up, riding in on his metaphorical white horse to save the day. Even before, Erik had hesitated, holding back from shedding blood.

Why?

 _Because you’re not the man you were_ , he told himself. But that wasn’t quite right.

 _Because you might just be the man Charles always said you were.  
_  
‘Be the better man.’ It was what Charles had always asked of him. Erik had thought it was impossible, the pipe dream of an overly idealistic man.

And yet, when his memories had been stripped away, when his sadness, pain and anger had been forgotten…

Perhaps he had been a better man.

Had that consideration and calm been within him the whole time?

Charles had always insisted it was.

 _The water was cold, despite the mild Miami night. Cold enough to seep into his wetsuit, making him feel it in his bones. A cold that forced to the surface terrible memories, memories that made him all the more determined to kill Schmidt or die trying, to hold on to the submarine even as his lungs burned for another breath._

 _He didn’t hear the splash above him, couldn’t focus on anything but his dream of vengeance slipping inexorably away into the depths of the ocean. Until warm arms closed around him, and a voice spoke into his head._

You are not alone.

 _Charles refused to give up on him, holding him until he relented, until he watched Schmidt fade into the distance. And yet, it didn’t hurt the way he imagined it would. Not with Charles by his side._

 _Charles, telling him that he knew everything that he was, everything that he had been._

 _Telling him that he was good inside, despite it all._

 _It warmed him more than the blanket the other man threw around his shoulders, or the tea he insisted on making him. It warmed him more than the knowledge that he wasn’t the only freak on the planet, more than even a new mission could._

 _It was Charles’ faith that made him stay with the CIA, Charles’ faith that kept him tethered to the house in Westchester. Charles’ faith that drew him to the other man’s bed._

He reached for the phone before Magneto could talk him out of it.

 

____________________________________________________

 

They met in a public place, neutral ground. Perhaps Charles thought it was just a bakery; he was less used to battle strategy than Erik.

“You need to be careful with those men you captured,” Erik said without preamble, taking the seat across from Charles.

“Arrested,” Charles corrected absentmindedly, eyeing the pastries in the case.

Erik barked out a laugh. “Under what authority?”

Charles drew his eyes from the danishes, shifting guiltily. “Arrested sounds better.”

“What does that matter, if it isn’t true?”

Charles shook his head. “Appearances matter. A difference in language can be the line between being an activist and a terrorist.” He gave Erik a significant look.

“I’m fairly sure bloodshed formed that line,” Erik scoffed. He wasn’t wearing his helmet—how could he in a place like this?—and he felt naked without it. Exposed and vulnerable. “And you’re changing the subject. Those men are dangerous.”

“I’m aware.”

Erik leaned across the small café table, insistently close. “Dangerous to _you_ ,” he hissed. “Their research was on mental abilities.”

“I know. Irene is a precognitive. Isn’t that amazing? She can’t control it, of course. But she actually _sees the future._ ”

Erik knew; he had seen the documents. It was an impressive ability and he was not surprised that people wanted to study her, along with Blindspot and her ability to snatch memories from people’s minds. But what mattered to him was not Irene’s power, but the fact that she was only twelve years old—kidnapped from her home and imprisoned in a cage.

“They know about you now,” Erik insisted. “They’ve seen what you can do. If they were interested in a little girl who can’t control what she does, then think how much they’ll want _you_.”

“I can take care of myself, Erik,” Charles frowned. “This chair has not made me entirely helpless.”

“That’s not what I was implying, and you know it.” Erik sat back with a huff. “I was just as worried about you when you could walk.”

Charles looked at him sharply. “Were you?”

“Always,” Erik responded, seeing no reason to dissemble. Not with Charles, not without his helmet.

“Erik, why did you call me? Really?”

“You don’t know?” he asked sceptically, wiggling his fingers in the way that had come to represent Charles’ telepathy.

At least for the two of them. He tried not to think about what it meant that they had their own language, a wealth of looks and gestures and words that only the two of them count interpret. Even after all this time.

“Of course not,” Charles snapped. “I told you once that I wouldn’t read you without your permission.”

“But you did while I was staying with you,” Erik guessed.

Charles was an idealist, but he wasn’t a fool. And only a fool would accept an enemy into their house unconditionally.

Charles dropped his gaze. “I did.”

“I would have done the same,” Erik said, although he knew that wouldn’t assuage Charles’ guilt. The man had always insisted on being _better_ than Erik, after all.

“I think you know why I called even without reading my mind,” he continued.

Charles merely looked at him expectantly.

“Fine. I miss you,” Erik admitted, hard-earned self-knowledge that came at the price of many a sleepless night.

“I miss you, too,” Charles said immediately. “And Erik,” he reached across the table, laying a hesitant hand over Erik’s. “I am sorry for what happened at the school. You had every right to be angry. I just…” he hung his head. “I just didn’t want to lose you again.”

 _Again_ , Erik thought. He had walked away from Charles twice in his life, and each time it had felt like the right thing to do, but also like the biggest mistake he had ever made. He had been sure that he was unable to turn his back on himself, who he truly was. He had been convinced that there was no compromise to be made with Charles, no common ground between peace and war.

But now…call it what he might, Charles had abducted those men and was holding them against his will. And he was happy to do so, in the name of the greater good. In the name of the mutants.

Isn’t that what Erik stood for?

“About what happened at the facility…” he began.

“I’m so happy you didn’t kill those people,” Charles interrupted earnestly, voice pitched low to elude the hearing of the other patrons.

“I don’t know why I didn’t. I would have, before.”

“You don’t know why?” Charles asked solemnly. Erik shifted under his gaze.

“I remember my whole life now—Schmidt, the Nazis, the CIA—but somehow I can’t be Magneto anymore.”

It was the hardest admission he had ever made, but somehow, the pressure of Charles’ hand on his eased the words from his throat.

“That’s because you’ve always been Erik. Underneath.”

“I meant what I said back at the school. I can’t be content to hide away in the countryside, and pretend there’s nothing wrong with the world. I saved those children from being experimented on.”

“Yes, you did. But you didn’t save St. John from killing his first man. You, of all people, should know what that does to a boy.”

 _St. John_? Erik thought, loud enough for Charles to hear.

 _I believe he wants to think of himself as ‘Pyro’,_ Charles supplied. _Just as you have been trying to hide behind the name ‘Magneto.’_

Was it hiding?

He supposed it was, in way. Not the kind of hiding he accused Charles of, but still hiding, a way of not engaging with the world.

“I want to help our kind, too.” Charles said. “Rescuing those children was the right thing to do. Killing all those people was not. Those are two things we agree on.”

“I…suppose that’s true,” Erik admitted.

“I’d like you to come back to the school. The children miss you. Lorna asks after you almost every day.”

At that, Erik had to smile. “I won’t teach maths.”

A wide, sunny grin broke out over Charles’ face. “I’ve seen you do maths,” he teased. “I wouldn’t want you to try and teach it.”

“So, we’re really going to try this? Again?”

“I believe we’ve both learned an awful lot over the last several years, my friend,” Charles said with a sad smile. “We are not the men we were.”

“We can be better men,” Erik told him, and for perhaps the first time in his life, he believed it was true.

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

“You’re doing _what_?” Mystique gaped at him, her form shifting minutely in her surprise.

“I’m returning to the Xavier Academy. I will run all our operations from there, with the help of the X-Men.”

“The X-Men are our enemies,” Azazel reminded him flatly.

“Not anymore. We’ve decided to embrace our common ground.”

“Which means?”

“We all fight injustices against mutantkind.”

“But?”

“Without unnecessary bloodshed,” Erik admitted. The one point of compromise Charles had always asked of him. The one he was finally willing to make.

Emma snorted. “I thought it was all necessary?”

“I’ve…re-evaluated.”

“I thought compromise was for the weak,” she asked, arching one perfectly shaped brow. God, Erik found her annoying sometimes. “Or have you re-evaluated that, too?”

“Unnecessary bloodshed ruins the reputation of the mutants,” he said, uncomfortably aware that he was parroting Charles’ words. He believed them, though. “Look, no one cares about three kids in cages if they have dozens of dead bodies to focus on. That’s something we should have realized a dozen missions ago. It’s why we’re getting nowhere, no matter how many humans we catch exploiting our kind.” He frowned. “It’s been brought to my attention that playing to people’s sympathies might be more effective than triggering their fears.”

“Brought to your attention,” Mystique snorted under her breath.

“He misses you, you know,” Erik said mildly, almost enjoying the way she flinched back from the words.

“Yeah, well…” she refused to meet his eyes.

Erik knew it would take more than that, knew that she was still so angry and hurt, the time and distance making it worse instead of better. Without Charles’ warm smiles to ease the hurt, without his gentle acceptance to remind her she was loved, all she had was the memory of being forced to hide, her pain at Charles’ rejection, her broken heart when she realized he would never care for her the way she wanted.

“You all are welcome to come with me. My mission hasn’t changed. I still want to protect all mutants from humanity. I still believe they want to hurt us, and will do everything in my power to stop that. I’ve just begun to hope there’s a way to do that which doesn’t involve genocide on either side.”

“Sorry, sugar,” Emma said, pursing her lips. “I’m not one for compromise. I’ve got my sights set on a bigger goal than just being accepted.”

The memory of Shaw’s plan as he had seen it in Emma’s thoughts, the destruction, the devastation and Emma’s delight in it, flashed through Erik’s mind. “Fine.”

“I stay with Miss Frost,” Azazel said seriously. “Integration will never happen for mutants who look like me.”

Erik sighed, shooting another glance at Mystique and her beautiful blue skin.

Riptide, ever the quiet one, merely shrugged and stepped closer to Azazel. His allegiance was clear—it had been from the very beginning.

“Mystique?” Erik tried.

“Don’t,” she said sharply, taking a step back. “I can’t. Not yet.”

His eyes drifted to the last remaining member of his team.

“Sorry, daddy-o,” Angel laughed, shaking her head as she joined her teammates. “The X-Men and I never did get along.”

Erik sighed. He hadn’t had high hopes, but he thought perhaps the girls would understand him. Charles had also rescued both of them, after all.

“Well, I’m certainly not going the peace, love and happiness route,” Blindspot snorted from the corner, where she had been watching the proceedings with disinterest.

And that was that. Erik refused to show his disappointment, merely nodding at the people who had stayed by his side for three years.

“I hope we never end up fighting against each other,” was all he could bring himself to say.

“For your sake, darling,” Emma laughed coldly, and left the room.

“We can keep the headquarters?” Azazel asked.

“They’re still in Shaw’s name,” Erik shrugged. He wouldn’t miss the barren safe houses they had been calling home for the last few years.

“Excellent,” the red-skinned man nodded. “Goodbye, Magneto.”

The remains of the Brotherhood slowly filtered out of the room, leaving Erik staring after them.

“I’ll—I’ll come with you,” a hesitant voice said. Erik turned, seeing that Pyro still hovering in the room. “If that’s okay with you.”

Erik thought about what Charles had told him—the boy that was St. John underneath—and smiled. “I’d like that,” he agreed.

It was more than bittersweet, disassembling the Brotherhood, the culmination of what he had thought of as his life’s work. He had been a leader, a force to be reckoned with. He had been making his mark on the world.

But he had come to realize that perhaps it wasn’t the mark he wanted to be making, that blood and tears weren’t the legacy he wanted to leave behind.

He knew what it was like to feel peace, now, and he wanted that feeling back. No matter the sacrifices.


	15. Fifteen

Erik stood in the mansion door, looking around at his surroundings, feeling like he was seeing them for the first time, but also the third.

His real first time, he had been incredulous and envious, shocked at the show of wealth and bitter, so bitter, than anyone who claimed to be _like him_ had ever gotten to experience it.

His second first time, when he knew nothing of Schmidt or the camps or the oppression mutants faced, he been awed, but glad to be there, happy that he could enjoy the elegance surrounding him. He had felt _lucky_ , a feeling entirely new to Erik.

This time, his third almost-first, he came to the mansion for the first time laden with baggage—both literal and metaphorical. This was the first time he came to the house already loving Charles, the first time he came with the intention of staying. The first time he saw the wealth and knew that Charles wanted nothing more than to share it. The first time he came with the knowledge that Charles’ life here hadn’t been perfect, or even happy, not until he had invited others of his kind into his home.

Erik stepped into the foyer, feeling the give of the expensive rug under his feet, and told himself that it was okay to _want_ this—not the physical riches of the house, or the massive rooms or the beautiful grounds, but he feeling of _home_ that washed over him as he stepped through the door.

“Your boyfriend _lives_ here?” Pyro stood gaping at his side, eyes wide as he took in the splendour.

Erik glared. “I’m thirty-five. I hardly have a boyfriend.”

“Whatever,” the kid rolled his eyes, gaze still fixed on the ostentatious display in front of him.

“Erik!” Charles said joyfully, appearing at the top of the stairs. “You’re early!”

“I didn’t have as much to bring with me as I thought,” Erik said wryly, gesturing to Pyro at his side.

“Ah,” Charles said, face falling slightly.

Erik knew that he wanted his sister back, perhaps just as much as he wanted Erik. “Charles—“ he began.

“It’s alright,” the man held up a hand. “She’s her own person. She has to find her own way. Now, let me just get down there and you can introduce me to our new guest.” He turned his chair easily, headed for what Erik assumed was the elevator, based on the abundance of metal he could feel pulsing in the wall.

“Wait,” he called. “Let me?”

He could feel the question pressing into his mind.

 _Let me help_ , he repeated, trying his best to send feelings of reassurance Charles’ way, bundling them up and pressing them at the weight of Charles’ mind, resting lightly against his own.

“Oh.” Charles held himself very, very still, but nodded slowly.

Erik couldn’t help but grin as he lifted Charles’ chair, guiding it slowly down the length of the grand stairs. It felt good, cradling Charles in his power, touching the man this way, as well. He concentrated, making the ride as smooth and comfortable as possible.

 _You can trust me. Even with this, even with your safety, you can trust me_ , he thought, not even aware he was projecting.

 _I know,_ Charles’ voice whispered back, warmth and happiness wrapped around the words.

“Cool,” Pyro said approvingly as Erik brought Charles to a smooth landing in front of them.

“Hello, St. John,” Charles said, holding out a hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The boy started. “How did you—?”

“Charles is telepathic,” Erik said mildly, amused at the guilt and embarrassment that instantly passed over the boy’s face. “Surely you realized that when you met him before?”

“No,” Pyro said sullenly. “He froze some people and stole some memories. Blindspot could do that too. Not the freezing, but, you know…” he mimed snatching something from his head. “Neither of those things necessarily means he can _read minds.”_

“I can freeze people!” a voice exploded from behind the door to the kitchen.

Charles laughed. “He didn’t mean like that, Bobby. And you may as well come on out now. Its no good eavesdropping when we know you’re there.”

Bobby Drake burst through the door with a wide grin. “Hi Erik! I’m glad you came back!”

The warmth that blossomed in Erik’s chest was a foreign feeling, if not entirely unpleasant.

Pyro crossed his arms, eyes narrowing. “Who’s the kid?”

“Bobby Drake, meet St. John Allerdyce. St. John, this is Bobby. St. John is going to be staying with us for a bit.”

“Cool!” Bobby bounced slightly on his toes.

In return, Pyro slouched the way only a teenager can, regarding the younger boy with narrowed eyes. He edged closer to Erik.

Charles hid a smile behind his hand.

“So, what can you do? I can freeze stuff!”

“Like, stop time?” Pyro asked sceptically.

“No, like this!” Bobby smirked, and suddenly Pyro’s crossed arms were iced over, frozen to his chest.

“Bobby!” Charles admonished. “Not other people!”

But Pyro was smiling. “No way,” he said, grinning down at the ice on his skin. With a slight narrowing of his eyes, it melted, water dripping away onto the floor.

“How’d you do that?” Bobby gasped, bounding forward eagerly.

Erik watched, amazing, as the teenager relaxed, his tense posture easing into something friendlier, welcoming. He held out a hand, and a small flame flickered into life in his palm.

“Wow!” Bobby reached out, jerking back just in time to avoid burning himself. “That’s awesome! You’re fire and I’m ice! We’re like a…dynamic duo!”

Pyro laughed, but not unkindly.

“Come on! I can introduce you to everyone else! They’re all younger than us, but they’re pretty cool, anyway.”

Erik smirked. Bobby couldn’t be more than twelve.

Pyro shot Erik an uncertain look, but then, to his surprise, nodded. “If that’s okay?” he checked.

“Of course. Get settled in.”

“Bobby can show you where your room is going to be, if you like,” Charles smiled, and then the children were bounding out of the room, as Bobby excitedly explained every other child’s power.

“He seems younger, suddenly,” Erik noted, seeing the smile on Pyro’s face as he pushed through the door.

“He’s only seventeen,” Charles said sadly.

In the past, Erik would have snapped that seventeen was practically an adult; he would have outlined every horrible thing that he had already done by that age. He would have scoffed at the implication that a seventeen year old should be treated like a child.

Today, he felt the stirrings of guilt at having let Pyro make his first kill, at having helped to wipe the innocence from his soul.

“Don’t feel guilty. Just help make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Charles said, not unkindly.

“I thought you weren’t going to read my thoughts?”

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, hesitance in his wide blue eyes.

“No.”

Erik was done hiding.

 

_________________________________________________________

 

That night, the children all tucked away in bed, Erik trailed uncertainly up the stairs after Charles, levitating the man’s chair smoothly up the steps.

The day had been surreal. Never in his life had he experienced a rush of children, smiles on their faces, running to see him. Lorna, Ororo and the others had bounced around him, tugging on his hands and speaking so fast he couldn’t grasp anything but their happiness.

Because of him.

The adult’s reactions had been easier to handle, easier to understand. Hank had reluctantly growled a welcome and then skulked in the background, his yellow eyes fixed on Erik, watching his every move. Sean had been wary, but tentatively friendly and Alex had been nowhere to be seen, keeping himself and his brother sequestered out of sight.

Charles had frowned, but Erik understood. He wasn’t sure he would have forgiven himself, either.

Now, he and Charles moved through the silent halls, passed the boys’ and girls’ corridors—separated for good old-fashioned British propriety—and reached the door of Charles’ bedroom.

Erik’s own room, the one he had used when he first visited the mansion, was just across the hall. Erik’s _other_ own room, that he had been in just a few weeks before, was in another wing, separated from the students and their headmaster by as much winding hall and creaky old steps as possible, as far from Charles as the first room had been close.

Erik wasn’t sure where he was supposed to be, now.

The first time he had been given a room in this house, he had been a friend—albeit a new one—a trusted ally. The second time, he had been an enemy, given asylum.

Both times it had blossomed into something more.

“Erik,” Charles said, laying a gentle hand on his arm. “I don’t want you in either of those rooms.”

“No?”

“No,” Charles confirmed. “There’s only one room I want you in, one room I want you calling your own.”

Erik glanced at the door to Charles’ own bedroom, just to be sure.

“Of course. I’m not going to suggest you bunk with Hank,” Charles laughed, wrapping his hand around Erik’s wrist and tugging lightly.

Erik let himself be led through the door. _Good thing. I’m allergic to cats and dogs._

Charles snorted with laughter. “Don’t let him catch you saying that.”

“What?” Erik grinned through his feigned innocence. “I didn’t say anything.”

The laughter, the joking, cut through his nerves, reminding him why he had been so drawn to Charles in the first place, why he longed for the man’s company as much as his cherry-red mouth.

“ My mouth, hmm?” Charles asked, turning to peer impishly at him over his shoulder.

Erik refused to be embarrassed.

“Yes, your mouth. It’s been my ruin.”

 _Or my salvation_ , he added, shielding the thought from the other man.

Charles arched an eyebrow and then very deliberately bit his lip, digging sharp white teeth into the pillowy flesh.

Erik groaned.

A quick shove and a thought had the door latching behind him, and then he dropped to his knees in front of Charles, replacing the other man’s teeth with his own. He tugged lightly, delighting in the way it made Charles shiver.

“I missed you,” Charles mumbled into his mouth, the words smothered by their lips and teeth.

Erik heard them all the same.

 _I’m sorry I left._

 _I’m sorry I lied._

And that was all Erik thought needed to be said, and so he silenced Charles’ mouth and his mind with his insistent touch, pushing his hands up under the thick wool of Charles’ sweater and spreading his fingers to pet at soft skin.

More than the house, more than this room, kissing Charles was like coming home.

The years seemed to shrivel up behind him, denying their separation, their mistakes.

“I want you,” he murmured, flesh hot beneath his hands.

“I need you,” Charles countered breathlessly.

Erik stood, bending to work an arm under the weight of Charles’ legs, slipping the other behind his back as Charles wound his arms around Erik’s neck with a soft smile.

He swung him up, enjoying the strain in his arms, the weight of his entire world clasped to his chest.

“I love you,” he finished, stretching his legs to close the distance to the bed.

Charles fell back on the bead with a _whuff_ , laughing breathlessly as Erik followed, climbing over him.

“I absolutely love you in those turtlenecks,” Charles said with a smirk. “But right now I’d prefer you out of it.”

Erik flushed with pleasure even as he reached for the hem of the sweater, bunching it in his fingers. He had always suspected Charles had a thing for him in turtlenecks, but the wardrobe purchased for him at the mansion confirmed it.

He had rather deliberately put one on that morning.

“We must be perfect for each other. If you can love my turtlenecks, and I can love your cardigans.”

“I’m pretty sure _everyone_ loves you in those turtlenecks,” Charles said wryly. “But your tolerance of my cardigans must be love.”

Erik ran his hands down the length of that cardigan, stroking Charles’ sides, before bringing his hands to the buttons. “Anyone who doesn’t love you in a cardigan is crazy,” he said firmly, even as he did his best to get Charles _out_ of the said cardigan.

Charles wriggled beneath him, doing his best to aid with the removal of his clothing, shrugging out of his cardie and shirt, leaving him breathless and half-bare. A flush spread from his cheeks all the way down to his pale, freckled chest, staining the flesh pink with his pleasure.

Erik spread his hand across the skin, feeling the heat of the flush. He smiled—the one Mystique always told him had too many teeth to it—and dragged his palms down, over the sensitive skin of Charles stomach, to the button of his trousers.

He maneuvered the fabric over Charles’ hips, pretending he didn’t see the way the other man stilled under his touch, turning his head to the side, cheeks pink with shame rather than arousal.

Instead, he touched the skin he revealed as reverently as possible, stroking equally over Charles’ hips—which he could feel—and his thighs—which he couldn’t.

 _Every inch of you is perfect_ , Erik broadcast the thought as loudly as possible as he peeled Charles’ boxers away.

Charles’ fumbling hands wrenched his own pants off in turn, and then they were naked and in each other’s arms.

For long moments Erik could do nothing but kiss him, feeling the slide of their flesh as they pressed closer and closer.

It was a strange feeling—knowing he had been here in Charles’ bed just a few weeks ago, touching him like this, and yet also feeling the weight of the years of their separation, feeling like he was coming back to Charles for the first time.

He remembered touching him, kissing him, loving him, those few short weeks ago.

But he hadn’t been able to fully appreciate the gift he was being given, being invited back into Charles’ bed, after everything that had happened between them.

There was forgiveness in every touch, in the spreading of Charles’ thighs and the wetness of his mouth. And in the stroking of Erik’s hands, the press of his tongue, wiping away the taint of Charles’ lies, wiping the slate clean.

“Can you turn over?” Erik asked, words spoken into Charles’ warm mouth.

“ _Yes_.”

Charles flipped himself easily, despite his legs, and relaxed into the bed, spreading himself out for Erik.

It was a beautiful sight, the expanse of pale flesh laid bare before him, demanding his touch. He almost couldn’t believe he was being allowed to do this again, but somehow he felt like the balance had been restored between them.

That they weren’t together in spite of everything, but _because_ of everything that had happened between them.

Erik brought his lips to Charles’ back, kissing a path along the clusters of freckles he found there.

His skin was salty and slick, and Erik couldn’t help but drag his tongue along the other man’s spine, hearing him gasp and moan.

And then there it was—a knot of scar tissue, raised and pink and white, ridged where the flesh around it yielded. It was big and ugly and Erik kissed his way all over it, apologies and reassurances and promises pressed into the flesh.

“Erik,” Charles whispered, voice rough and broken. “Is it—alright?”

He sounded small and unsure, and Erik pulled back, gazing down at him in wonder. “It’s amazing. You are amazing.”

“But, my legs.” His face was turned into the pillow, words muffled.

Erik frowned, reaching down to grasp at the back of Charles’ thighs.

“What about them?”

“You don’t mind?”

“Of course not. I didn’t the last time.”

Charles turned his head then, meeting Erik’s gaze. “You didn’t know, then.”

“Know?”

“What it was like—before. What it was like when I was normal.”

“Oh, Charles,” Erik slid down to the bed, curling close to the other man. “You were never normal. That’s what I’ve always loved about you.”

Charles flushed unhappily. “But, the sex was better, before.”

“It was different, before. I want you, just like this.”

“I just don’t want you making comparisons. And being disappointed.”

“Charles,” Erik said, voice gone serious. “We said we were going to do this, you and me. To move past everything that happened before. I want to be with you, just as you are now. Don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Fantastic,” Erik offered him one of his sharky grins. “Then I’m going to fuck you until you can’t remember what happened five minutes ago, let alone years.”

“Oh,” Charles groaned, going red for an entirely different reason.

Crawling over him, Erik stretched out to cover Charles’ body with his own, skin against skin. His lips brushed against Charles’ ear, making him shiver. “There’s no where else I’d rather be,” he whispered.


	16. Epilogue

“I can’t believe we’re actually taking him with us,” Alex groaned, slumped over in his seat in the Blackbird.

“Alex, he’s part of the team.”

“Yeah, I can’t believe that, either.”

Glancing over at the blond, Erik merely gave him his best vicious grin, all teeth, little humour.

He didn’t mind the ribbing, really. Alex hadn’t hit him with a plasma beam the second he walked in the door (either time), and for that Erik was grateful.

It would just take some time for the kid to warm back up to him.

“ _I_ can’t believe we brought the kid,” Sean added with a shake of his head, eyes on Pryo.

“He’s just as old as you were on our first mission,” Erik reminded him.

“Yeah, and look how that turned out!” Sean’s eyes widened dramatically.

Erik’s gaze slid over to Charles, wheelchair strapped securely into the back of the jet. “Fair point,” he allowed.

He always had insisted it was crazy, going to war with a bunch of teenagers at their backs. Now, though, he was happy to have Pyro at his side, the kid’s eyes big and giddy as they flew at record speeds.

The boy spent more of his time hanging around the children—Bobby specifically, torching anything the boy saw fit to freeze—than the adults in the house, but Erik found his presence comforting.

Every time he smiled, every time he laughed and showed off and generally forgot what a terrible upbringing he had had, he reminded Erik of everything he left behind. Everything he was determined not to be. St. John could have gone the same way as Erik, caught up in a never-ending cycle of grief and violence, but instead he was here, laughing joyously as the jet sped through the air.

They were on their way to save another mutant from the hands of the humans. Erik was doing what he believed in, and he was doing it with Charles at his side.

For a long time, he hadn’t thought it would be possible, to have the man he loved and be the man he wanted to be.

And yet, here he was.

“There it is.” Hank lowered the jet, swooping down out of the clouds as Erik squinted to make out the building they were closing in on.

It was a government facility this time, and that set his teeth on edge. That more than ever made Erik want to hold on to the hope that Pyro and the other kids fuelled inside of him.

People did bad things, Charles told him over and over again. Species did not.

Still, he thought with a vicious smile, he looked forward to kicking some ass today.

The jet landed almost silently, another amazing innovation from one Dr. Hank McCoy. Erik cracked his knuckles as they touched ground, reaching out for all the metal within his range.

“Must you look so homicidal?” Alex asked with a sigh.

Erik grinned. “Absolutely,” he agreed, flashing his teeth.

“Erik,” Charles chided as Erik deftly undid the metal holding Charles stationary in the jet. Seamless links, unbreakable except by Erik.

Anything to keep Charles safe.

“Hmm?”

Charles smiled, blue eyes twinkling. “Don’t play innocent. You’re purposefully goading him.”

Erik widened his eyes, even knowing they would never be as guileless and convincing as Charles’. “Who, me?”

“Entirely unbelievable,” Charles told him matter-of-factly, wheeling his way down the gangplank.

“Luckily it isn’t often in my best interest to appear innocent,” Erik said with a shrug, steadying the chair so there were no bumps as Charles rolled out onto the grass.

“Alright, everyone.” Charles could shift seamlessly from irritated boyfriend to team captain, from innocent joking to Important Business. It was really quite impressive. “There’s only one inside, but he’s…different.” Charles frowned, eyes distant. “Special. I’d really like to talk to him.”

“One mutant,” Erik joined in. “An entire base of trained soldiers. Are you all ready?”

The boys straightened at his tone, ready and willing to play the part of soldiers for the cause.

His heart swelled with pride.

These were his boys, each and every one. Alex might not acknowledge it, Hank might not need his guidance, but all four were his, found by him, trained by him, fostered under his and Charles’ care.

He never thought he’d say it, but he was proud of them.

The base was guarded, but it was no harder than Russia had been to get them in.

Easier, actually, with Sean causing men to crumple to the ground, hands over their ears. With Hank’s snarl making them drop their guns in surprise.

With Charles, as ever, soothing the way.

They burst through the doors, metal curling in on itself left in their wake.

“Where?”

“To the left,” Charles barked.

They moved as a unit, Erik taking point, Alex and Hank flanking him, at the ready.

Sean and Pyro covered Charles, knowing Erik would kill them slowly if anything happened to the man.

“There,” Charles said, sending two guards slumping to the ground.

The door was reinforced steel, and Erik grinned as he ripped it from its hinges.

A small fire burst out as the guards inside charged forward, and Erik had to smile as he saw that no one was actually harmed.

Control had been as hard for Pyro as it once had been for Erik, or Alex or Sean.

Charles had guided the boy to that sweet spot of concentration, and the wall of fire that leapt up to protect them only reinforced Erik’s conviction that Charles was born to teach.

“Who the fuck are you?” a voice snarled, even as the guards sat down, dropping their guns as their faces went blank.

“Smooth moves, Professor,” Pyro laughed as the flames died out.

“Hello,” Charles rolled forward once the coast was clear.

“Cover the door,” Erik hissed, gesturing emphatically to Alex and Sean. He knew how long Charles’ recruitment speeches could last.

“I’m Charles Xavier, and we’re here to rescue you.”

A loud snort issued from the back of the room. “A cripple and some kids?”

Erik narrowed his eyes. “I think you’ll find we’re a bit more than that,” he said, stepping forward. Metal rang out in every inch of the prisoner’s body, and he grabbed hold, jerking the man’s arms to his sides. “Don’t you agree?”

The man snarled, white teeth flashing. He struggled briefly, his huge frame writhing under Erik’s hold, and then he subsided. “Neat trick.”

“You too,” Erik said ruefully. He could feel metal built in to the man’s skeleton, lining his bones, reinforcing his body. “The government do this to you?”

“I guess,” he would have shrugged, if Erik hadn’t held him still. “I don’t remember jack shit, but they’re trying to use me now.”

Erik grit his teeth, the injustice of it all washing over him. This man, kept in a cage, experimented on—tortured, probably—it wasn’t right, and he wanted to _do something about it._

 _Erik,_ Charles’ voice tickled at his mind. _We are doing something about it._

 _More,_ Erik thought viciously, the image of the sleeping soldiers overwhelming his mind.

 _We’re not killing them._

 _They fused adamantium to his bones, Charles._

 _I can see that._

 _So?  
_  
Charles glanced away from the prisoner, meeting Erik’s eyes. There was no judgment in their blue depths, and Erik felt some of the tension drain out of his body. _So, they are people. They did not capture him. They did not experiment on him. They only keep him here. They will be brought to justice for that crime._

Erik sighed. If it were up to him, he’d kill every human in the room.

But he didn’t, and that was the important part.

He and Charles would never quite agree, but Erik had learned not to act so rashly, and Charles had agreed to detainment for everyone involved in mutant torture.

His fancy Oxford degree, not to mention Hank’s multiple doctorates, held a lot of sway in certain circles, and suddenly there were lobbyists for mutant rights, campaigns to save the mutants, and donors for their mutant school.

Erik sometimes chafed under it all, wanting nothing more than to hurt and destroy those who sought to hurt him.

But more than even Charles, he had only to look at Pyro’s hopeful face, or Bobby’s, or Lorna’s, gazing at him with adoration, looking up to him, to remember why destruction wasn’t always the best course of action.

Peace was more than an option, it was a goal, and one Erik was willing to pursue with all his might.

“Let’s get him out of here,” he said, ripping the bars off the man’s cage.

 _Thank you, my friend,_ Charles whispered, his mind caressing Erik’s with gratitude, contentment, and love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has been reading and commenting and leaving kudos! I really appreciate it.


End file.
